November Median takes another dive

I posted a few days ago that North County San Diego Median price fell 12% in ONE month. The numbers for Nov were released today and the IE did better but still fell quite a bit. Riverside fell 4.5% and San Berdu fell 7.5% from Oct to Nov.

All homes	7-Nov	8-Nov	%Chng
Los Angeles	$499,000	$340,000	-31.90%
Orange	$582,750	$400,000	-31.40%
Riverside	$356,500	$220,000	-38.30%
San Bernardino	$330,000	$185,250	-43.90%
San Diego	$440,000	$305,000	-30.70%
Ventura	$521,250	$355,000	-31.90%
SoCal	$435,000	$285,000	-34.50%

Last month the Riverside Median was $230K and San Berdu was $200k. The number of sales fell about 800 in Riverside from 4500 to 3700 and in San Berdu the fell from 2900 to 2400. Some of that decline is the normal drop from Oct to Nov but some of it is the result of the market cooling after the Stock Market collapse.

Here's the DataQuick report.

Southern California home sales outpaced last year for the fifth consecutive month in November, when 55 percent of buyers in the resale market chose repossessed homes. The abundance of discounted foreclosures helped push the median sale price down a record 35 percent from a year ago, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 16,720 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the six-county Southland last month. That was down 22.3 percent from 21,532 in October but up 26.9 percent from 13,173 in November 2007, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick. (But still the second lowest year on record. Last year was the worst)

On the surface, last month's sales look much weaker than in the prior two months: November's 26.9 percent year-over-year sales increase compares with annual gains of 64.6 percent in September and 66.7 percent in October. Moreover, the 22.3 percent drop in sales between October and November was a record and compares with an average October-to-November decline of just 7.4 percent since 1988.

The median price paid for all homes combined last month was $285,000, down 5 percent from October and down a record 34.5 percent from November 2007. Last months median was the lowest since it was $298,000 in April 2003, which was the last time the median was below $300,000. November's median stood 43.6 percent below the peak $505,000 median reached in spring and summer of last year.

The median price has eroded consistently over the past 16 months as price depreciation swept the region, discounted foreclosures ballooned in inland markets and sales stagnated in higher-end neighborhoods. The latter have suffered from, among other things, a difficult financing environment for large mortgages.

Foreclosures have accounted for about half of all Southland resales during the past three months. In November, 54.6 percent of all the homes that resold had been foreclosed on at some point in the prior 12 months. That's up from 50.9 percent in October and 18.8 percent a year ago.

At the county level, these "foreclosure resales" ranged from 44.1 percent of November existing home sales in Los Angeles County to 70.4 percent in Riverside County. In Orange County foreclosure resales were 44.2 percent of sales; in San Diego 52.1 percent; San Bernardino 67.8 percent and in Ventura County 47.8 percent.

Indicators of market distress continue to move in different directions. Foreclosure activity has waned recently but remains near record levels, while financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is near the all-time low, as is financing with multiple mortgages. Down payment sizes and flipping rates are stable, non-owner occupied buying activity appears flat overall but is above-average in some markets, MDA DataQuick reported.