January sales report, Riverside cracks $200k

Dataquick has posted the January sales report. Sales were down 22% from December. The number you want to look at here is the Median Price drop. It's TEN PERCENT in ONE MONTH! Statewide 60% of sales were foreclosures and I'm sure short sales made up nearly all the rest. Believe what you want, but this is one UGLY monthly report.

An estimated 29,458 new and resale houses and condos were sold in California last month. That was down 22.1 percent from 37,836 in December and up 53.9 percent from 19,145 in January 2008. Sales have increased on a year-over-year basis for the last seven months.

The median price paid for a home last month was $224,000, down 10 percent from $249,000 for the month before, and down 41.5 percent from $383,000 in January a year ago. Around half the drop in median is due to price depreciation, the other half due to shifts in the types of homes selling, and how those homes are financed. Last month's median was the lowest since it was $220,000 in May 2001.

Of the existing homes sold last month, 60.4 percent had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months. A year ago it was 29.6 percent.

The typical mortgage payment that home buyers committed themselves to paying last month was $969. That was down from $1,110 in December, and down from $1,790 in January last year. Adjusted for inflation, mortgage payments are 54.5 percent below the spring 1989 peak of the prior real estate cycle. They are 62.0 percent below the current cycle's peak in June 2006.

Now for the local report, Riverside's median selling price finally cracked $200K! Riverside's median drop from $209k in Dec to $195k in Jan. That's a insane one month drop. San Berdu droped from $180k down to $162K.

A total of 15,227 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the six-county Southland last month. That was down 23.6 percent from 19,926 in December but up 52.5 percent from 9,983 in January 2008. A decline of 20 to 30 percent between December and January is normal.

Last month's sales were the highest for that month since January 2006, when 21,895 sold, and were 16 percent below the average January sales total since 1988, when DataQuick's statistics begin.

Sales of existing single-family houses reached record levels for a January in inland communities such as Chula Vista and Lemon Grove in San Diego County; Fontana and Victorville in San Bernardino County; Perris and Temecula in Riverside County; and Palmdale in Los Angeles County. Such areas have seen prices drop, and therefore affordability rise, more than most Southland communities.

The median price paid for all homes combined last month was $250,000, down 10.1 percent from $278,000 in December and down a record 39.8 percent from $415,000 in January 2008. Last month's median was the lowest since it was $242,000 in February 2002. January's median was 50.5 percent below the peak $505,000 median reached in spring and summer of 2007.

Last month's foreclosure resales - homes resold in January that had been had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months - represented 58.3 percent of all resales, up from 56.2 percent in December and 28.6 percent a year ago. At the county level, foreclosure resales ranged from 46.0 percent of January resales in Orange County to 71.2 percent in Riverside County. In Los Angeles foreclosure resales were 51.9 percent of resales; in San Diego 55 percent; San Bernardino 67.3 percent and in Ventura County 49.1 percent.

Sales Volume			Median Price
All homes	Jan-08	Jan-09		Jan-08	Jan-09	%Chng
Los Angeles	3,398	4,532		$458,000	$300,000	-34.50%
Orange	1,286	1,806		$520,000	$370,000	-28.80%
Riverside	1,939	3,320		$331,500	$195,000	-41.20%
San Bernardino	1,111	2,532		$298,500	$162,000	-45.70%
San Diego	1,826	2,459		$429,000	$280,000	-34.70%
Ventura	423	578		$477,750	$335,000	-29.90%
SoCal	9,983	15,227		$415,000	$250,000	-39.80%