September Numbers

Here are the Sales numbers from September. As expected they continue the downward trend in both sales numbers and sales prices. I’ve include last months numbers to gauge how fast the declines are happening, since the August was the month when the credit markets imploded and the media started to actually report on the housing downturn. As you can see the one month declines are staggering. Orange County leads the price declines with a stunning 11% in one month. Not too far behind is San Berdu with a 10% drop in median price. If that trend keeps up homes will be free in a yearJ. Riverside had a more respectable 5% decline in Median along with LA, and Ventura. San Diego did the best this month with only one percent, but San Diego has been declining for far longer than other areas so a small drop may be expected. The sales numbers are also dismal and show just how hard it is to sell a home today.

Keep in mind this chart is based on “median price” which I hate as an indicator. Median does not accurately indicate what homes are selling for and can be easily skewed higher or lower if most of the sales are at one end of the market. It has been well documented that the higher end properties are still selling well and that this is probably making the median prices higher.

From DataQuick
Home sales in Southern California plunged to the lowest level in more than two decades, as financing with "jumbo" mortgages dropped by half. The median price paid for a home dropped sharply as a result, a real estate information service reported.
A total of 12,455 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in September. That was down 29.9 percent from 17,755 for the previous month, and down 48.5 percent from 24,195 for September last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
Last month's sales were the slowest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The previous low was in February 1995 when 12,459 homes sold. The September sales average is 25,258.
The number of Southland homes purchased with jumbo mortgages dropped from 5,359 in August to 2,681 in September, a decline of 50.0 percent. A jumbo mortgage is a home loan for $417,000 or more. For loans below that threshold, the sales decline was 19.3 percent, from 9,237 in August to 7,459 in September. Historically, sales drop by about 10 percent from August to September.
The median price paid for a Southland home was $462,000 last month, down 7.6 percent from $500,000 in August, and down 4.0 percent from $481,000 for September last year.