Bay Area home sales slow, prices flat

November 15, 2006

La Jolla, CA.----Bay Area home sales held steady at a five-year low in October as buyers and sellers circled each other in a game of wait-and-see. Prices remained flat, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 7,979 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine-county region in October. That was up 0.9 percent from 7,907 for the month before, and down 24.1 percent from 10,508 for October last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Last month's sales count was the lowest for any October since 2001 when 7,867 homes were sold. An average October has 8,445 sales in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The range is from 5,767 in 1994 to 11,728 in 2003.

"The market is in the midst of its post-frenzy rebalancing phase. The sky is probably not falling, as some have predicted. But there will be those who bought near or at the peak, and who could find themselves in financial trouble if they need to sell and move sooner than they had planned," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president.

The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $614,000 last month, up 0.5 percent from September's $611,000, and unchanged from October last year. The median hovered around $630,000 last spring and early summer, and spiked to $644,000 in June before coming down.

DataQuick, a subsidiary 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 typical monthly mortgage payment that Bay Area buyers committed themselves to paying was $2,901 last month. That was down from $2,924 in September, and up from $2,876 for October a year ago. It peaked in June at $3,183. Adjusted for inflation, mortgage payments are 14 percent higher than they were at the peak of the prior cycle fourteen years ago.

Indicators of market distress are still at a moderate level. Financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is flat. Foreclosure activity is rising but is still below average. Down payment sizes are stable, as are flipping rates and non-owner occupied buying activity, DataQuick reported.

All Homes	No Sold Oct-05	No Sold Oct-06	Pct. Chg	Median Oct-05	Median Oct-06	Pct. Chg
Alameda	2,187	1,586	-27.5%	$571K	$578K	1.2%
Contra Costa	2,104	1,658	-21.2%	$575K	$544K	-5.4%
Marin	395	286	-27.6%	$817K	$844K	3.3%
Napa	187	140	-25.1%	$608K	$555K	-8.7%
San Francisco	605	523	-13.6%	$778K	$771K	-0.9%
San Mateo	754	653	-13.4%	$759K	$745K	-1.8%
Santa Clara	2,557	1,971	-22.9%	$639K	$658K	3.0%
Solano	936	605	-35.4%	$476K	$462K	-2.9%
Sonoma	783	557	-28.9%	$564K	$531K	-5.9%
Bay Area	10,508	7,979	-24.1%	$614K	$614K	0.0%

Source: DataQuick Information Systems, www.DQNews.com

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