The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2016 if sales maintained the July pace throughout the year. The median price of an existing, single-family detached California home slipped 1.8 percent in July to $509,830 from $519,410 in June.
Advertisement
San Diego County’s median home price, $495,000, was unchanged in July from June, real estate tracker CoreLogic reported Wednesday.
“Despite the tight housing supply conditions that have persisted over the past few years, home sales have stayed relatively solid”, says C.A.R. President Pat “Ziggy” Zicarelli.
In May, the closely followed Case-Shiller home price index rose 5.4% from a year earlier in Los Angeles and Orange counties, compared to 6% for most of the past year. It was the largest annual decline for any month in almost two years. But, it is still a stark contrast to before the housing crash in 2005 and 2006 when 1,000 or more new homes could sell in a month.
The drop from June to July of this year was 11.3 percent, even sharper than the yearly comparison.
“However, there’s a caveat involving a quirk of the calendar in that this July had 20 business days for transactions to be recorded in the public record compared with 22 business days in both June 2016 and July 2015”, said CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage in a statement.
“The last time sales dropped sharply, about 12 percent, between June and July was in 2011, which was also the last time the month of July had only 20 business days for recordings”.
Sales were down 11.3 percent year-over-year across Southern California.
“The market has been just so hot, it’s just recouping a bit”, he said. The slowdown in building has been attributed by experts to a lack of buildable land, insufficient municipal master plans, as well as community and environmental opposition.
“Housing is expensive because there’s not enough of it”, said chamber CEO Jerry Sanders.
Advertisement
“California’s median home price rose again in July from previous year, but the pace of increase has clearly slowed down in recent months”, says C.A.R.
