Foreclosures nearly equal home sales in January
By Jim Wasserman and Phillip Reese - jwasserman@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:32 pm PST Thursday, February 14, 2008
A home under foreclosure in Stockton is similar to signs sprouting up on a more a growing basis all over California.
Ariel Zambelich / Associated Press file, November 2007
In the most ominous indicator yet of the capital region's struggling housing market, January saw nearly as many people lose their homes as buy them.
January's 1,815 closed escrows in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo and Yuba counties was only 33 more than the 1,782 foreclosures recorded in the same counties that month, according to statistics from La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla and Foreclosures.com. of Fair Oaks.
Sutter County sales data was not available from DataQuick.
The nearly even status of home sales and foreclosures stems from still-rising numbers of bank repossessions and what's typically one of the slowest months on the real estate sales calendar.
Still, the tallies reveal an unprecedented phenomenon in a region where sales and home values have been declining since summer 2005. Every business day during January in the region an average of 85 people lost their homes to lenders, almost double the number of foreclosures from September, according to Foreclosures.com, a Web site for real estate investors.
The foreclosures -- more than 10,000 last year in the eight-county capital region -- are fast pushing down home sales prices. As banks heavily discount their growing foreclosure inventories and more buyers and investors gravitate toward houses in the $200,000 price range, median prices in Sacramento and Placer counties have fallen the fastest in California, according to DataQuick.
Though that's increasingly stressful for people who have to sell their homes, it's proving a growing advantage for people who until now have been shut out of home buying.
Median sales prices for all new and existing homes combined -- where half the homes sell for more and half sell for less -- have returned to June 2003 levels in Sacramento and to December 2003 levels in Placer County, according to DataQuick statistics.
• Sacramento County's median sales prices for all new and existing homes are down a record 26.8 percent from January 2007, the firm reported. The county's $253,000 median sales price is down now 34.6 percent from an August 2005 high of $387,000.
• Placer County's $360,500 median sales price for new and existing homes combined is down 14.9 percent from a year ago, and 31.4 percent off its August 2005 peak of $525,000, DataQuick reported.
Solano, Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- inland urban California counties that experienced the same housing boom that swept over the capital region from 2001 through 2005 -- have also seen their median sales prices decline 20 percent in the past year.
Meanwhile, as home sales also reached 20-year lows for a January in the Bay Area and Southern California, the Sacramento region fared slightly better.
Sacramento County's 1,077 closed escrows for new and existing homes were the lowest for January since 1996. The 354 home sales in Placer County were the lowest since 1995 for a January.
Sales typically rise in February and March, but foreclosures are rising, too, experts say.
"We could see that number continue to go up," said Fred Arnold, president-elect for the California Association of Mortgage Brokers. He credits the continued increases to "the enormous run-up of (home) values and the enormous number of loans that went out where many people weren't giving thought to whether they could afford the home."
Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102
sacbee.com |
