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July 2009 Housing Report For Solano County: Median Price Up 7% In One Month

August 8th, 2009 categories: Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Market Update, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville

July Home Sales Report - Click HereI just finished compiling July’s home sale numbers for Solano County. And they seem to confirm what we’ve been seeing week-in and week-out in recent weeks and months — that the market has definitely stabilized.

Stabilization is always the first step towards a housing recovery. And over the past 3-4 months, we’ve seen the local housing market firming up, as inventory dropped and demand increased.

If you follow my regular weekly Solano Home Sales Report, you’ve know that Solano’s housing inventory has dropped by 75% or more since the beginning of the year in some parts of the county.Solano Monthly Median Home Sales Price Thru July 09

And so the combination of low interest rates, low prices, first-time buyer tax credits, and high investor activity has created a perfect storm locally, with multiple-offers continuing on most well-priced homes in the county’s most affordable areas.

July’s numbers show that prices have started to creep upwards in some areas. Though anytime you look at a sample size as small as one single month, you really have to compare it to the previous few months, to make sure you’re not putting too much weight on what may have just been a one-month aberration.Solano Home Sales Thru July 09

That was my first thought when I analyzed July’s statistics and saw that the median price had climbed 7% since June. That’s a pretty huge jump in just one month.

I attributed much of that to Fairfield’s off-the-charts 29% increase in its median price, which didn’t really tell the whole story, since Fairfield’s numbers had unexpectedly plummeted in June but in July returned to where they had been the previous two months.

So I figured that once I took Fairfield out of the equation, Solano’s median would be substantially lower than the $197,250 that I was reporting. But to my surprise, even without Fairfield’s resurgent July numbers, Solano’s median price was actually even a tad higher — $197,500 — which still represented a 7% increase from June.

This month’s three-page report as well as the charts that appear on this post show all sorts of interesting statistics. Among the highlights:

  • Solano County’s median sales price was $197,250, which was up 7% from June’s $185,000.
  • The highest median price in the county was Benicia ($383,750) and the lowest was Vallejo ($142,000).
  • The number of sales county-wide was down 13% from June. Still, July was Solano County’s third strongest month this year.
  • The lowest sales price in Solano County was for a condominium in Vallejo that sold for a mere $25,000. The highest price was for a 3,800 sq. ft. custom home on 20 acres in Green Valley that closed at $1.4 million.
  • Compared to last July, county-wide prices are down 20% in Solano, while the number of sales are up 15%
  • Distress Sales still dominate the market throughout most of Solano County. In July, 84% of the closed sales were either foreclosures (REOs) or short sales.
  • Vallejo had the highest percentage of distress sales last month (91%), while Benicia had the lowest (57%).

To see the complete July Solano County Home Sales report, click here.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 8:51 am and is filed under Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Market Update, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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