San Francisco Home Sales Flat in November

SAN FRANCISCO (DQNews) - San Francisco Bay area home sales were flat in November compared with the month before and remained well below year-ago levels. The overall median sale price dipped slightly below the prior month and a year earlier, in part because of lackluster sales in higher-cost areas, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 6,111 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was down 0.2% from 6,122 in October and down 11.2% from 6,878 in November 2009, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego.

A sales drop from October to November is normal for the season. On average, sales have declined 8.0% between those two months since 1988, when DataQuick's statistics begin. Last month's sales count was 23.3% below the November average of 7,966 sales. October sales were 29.8% below average, while they were 27.4% below average in September and 31.5 below in August.

"Clearly, Bay Area buyers and sellers who can wait this market out, are doing just that. And if you're buying or selling in the upper half of the market, it's self-evident that you're more able to put your move on hold," said John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president.

"The thing is, demand is accumulating. And at some point the market will kick back into gear. It's possible that prices have bottomed out, and it seems likely that today's interest rates won't be around a year from now. There will be catch-up activity, but the big question is timing. We'll have to see what happens with employment, the economy, and with today's tight credit," he said.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos in the Bay Area was $380,000 in November, down 0.8% from $383,000 in October and down 1.8% from $387,000 in November 2009. The peak of the current cycle, $665,000, was reached in June/July 2007, while the median hit a low of $290,000 in March 2009. Around half of the peak-to-trough drop was the result of a decline in home values, while the other half was a shift in sales mix to lower-cost homes.