DQNews Archived Article

Bay Area Decline Eases

by Real Estate Analyst John Karevoll
June, 2000

La Jolla, CA.— Bay Area home sales recovered somewhat in May after a severe April drop-off, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 7,013 resale houses were sold in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was up 12.0 percent from 6,263 for April, and down 5.4 percent from 7,414 for May last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

The year-ago May was the strongest May on record for the Bay Area. Last April's year-over-year sales drop-off was 20.2 percent, the steepest in almost five years.

"Sales counts will probably stay strong through the summer, although not quite up to last summer's record levels. More potential sellers are putting their homes on the market because of the high prices," said Mike Ela, DataQuick president.

The median price paid for a resale house in the Bay Area was $370,000 in May. That was up 3.4 percent from $358,000 for April, and up 25.0 percent from $296,000 for May last year. That year-over-year increase was the strongest since March 1989 when the $214,000 median was up 25.9 percent.

DataQuick, now a business unit of Vancouver-based MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. The numbers for Napa County are estimated because of incomplete data availability.

Home sales in the rest of the state are on the rise again. The May sales count for resale houses was 34,400, up 11.7 percent from 30,800 for April and up 3.6 percent from 33,200 for May last year, DataQuick reported.

Resale houses