DQNews Archived Article

Record Bay Area Home Sales

by Real Estate Analyst John Karevoll
January, 2000

La Jolla, CA.— Bay Area home prices jumped to a record high in December, while sales counts dropped for the first time in over a year, a real estate information service reported.

The median price paid for a resale house in the nine-county region hit $319,000 last month. That was up 0.9 percent from $316,000 for the month before, and up 15.6 percent from $276,000 for December a year ago, according to DataQuick.

The median passed the $300,000 threshold in June. Last month's year-over-year increase was the strongest of the decade.

"Last summer, the annual rate at which prices were going up was around ten percent. That was a sustainable pace. The current rate of over fifteen percent is probably higher than the market can absorb for very long and we'll see prices or sales counts level off during the next few months," said Mike Ela, president of DataQuick.

A total of 6,343 resale houses were sold in the region in December. That was up 5.9 percent from November's 5,991, and down 3.7 percent from 6,585 for December last year. The decline was the first since October 1998. Sales counts have been approaching 1988 peaks for the last year. In December of that year 6,795 resale houses were sold.

DataQuick monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts.

Because of relatively low mortgage interest rates, the cost of owning a Bay Area home still has not passed the peak of ten years ago. Assuming the median price, a 20 percent down payment, and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, a typical mortgage payment last month would have been $1,795. In March of 1990 it would have been $1,828, DataQuick reported.

Resale houses