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January Monthly Home Sale Report: Solano Sales Activity Hits 20-Month Low

February 8th, 2010 categories: Benicia, Buying, Market Update, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo

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But The Median Price Is 7% Higher Than Last January

I just compiled January’s Solano County Home Sales Report and while prices were down slightly, the big news, as the headline indicates, was that Solano’s overall sales totals dropped dramatically last month, to their lowest level in well over a year.

County-wide, Solano totaled 389 home sales last month, compared to 520 in December — a 25% drop.  The last time there were that few monthly sales in Solano was May, 2008, when there were 384 sales. That was 20 months ago.Solano Home Sales - Jan 10So the big question, of course, is whether this decline is due to

  • a) the still-low inventory;
  • b) the traditionally softer holiday period (most contracts accepted during the holidays usually close in January); or,
  • c) an actual drop in demand due to a market-shift.

As I’ve cautioned before, statistics for a single month aren’t usually as reliable as a quarterly report. So subtle differences from one month to another aren’t always a true indicator of what’s really happening in the marketplace.

But when you see a drop-off as large as we saw in January, it certainly causes you to stand up and take notice. Monthly Sales Report - Click Here

Accordingly, I’ll be very interested in seeing what happens in February and March, for if the number of sales remains as low as it was in January, we could look back at January as the beginning of yet another market shift — particularly if the inventory continues to increase as it has in recent weeks.

Though, my guess is that January’s low sales numbers aren’t really the result of a market shift, but rather due to several different factors:

1) The first-time buyer tax credit was originally going to expire at the end of November, which likely caused some people to buy early enough so they could close by the end of November. Some of those buyers would have otherwise still been in the market and ready to buy in December.

2) Many of the REOs and short sale lenders likely had strong incentives to close as many sales as they could by the end of the year so they could report those losses in 2009.  So some end-of-December closings probably would have normally closed in early January.

3) Many buyers typically put their home shopping activities on hold during the holidays, which traditionally means fewer closed sales in January.

4) With low inventories and fewer new listings that month, buyers who were still actively looking had fewer housing choices in December.

Along with the drop in total sales, the median sales price for Solano County was down, too. The January median sales price was $205,000, which is 5% lower than it was in December ($215,000).

Yet, 3 of the 5 cities in our market area actually saw their median prices increase from December to January.

Benicia was the big winner in that category, with a 24% rise ($420,000 in January, $340,000 in December). The other cities on the plus side were Vacaville (+4%) and Vallejo (+1%).

But before you get too giddy over Benicia’s $80,000 rise in its median price in one month, remember that there were only 24 total sales there last month. So it’s possible the numbers may have been skewed by just a few random sales.

To see the data for each city in our Solano market area, download the full Solano County Home Sales Report for January, 2010.

A few other highlights from that report:

  • The highest sales price in January was $927,000 (Vacaville). The lowest was $36,000 (Fairfield).
  • Solano County’s median price was 7% higher this January than in Jan. 2009. ($205,000 this year vs. $192,000 a year ago).
  • The median price compared to Jan. ‘09 was up in Fairfield (+25%) and Vallejo (+12%) but down in Vacaville (-11%), Benicia (-7%) and Suisun (-2%).
  • The percentage of distress sales was fairly similar to what it was in December for most cities in the county. Benicia, which had soared from a lower-than-normal 37% in November to a higher-than-normal 73% in December, was back down to 54% last month — close to what it’s been for most of the past six months.

Please contact us for more information or details on these statistics,  To see every home that’s presently available on our MLS (in any city in Solano County), visit our Home Search page.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 12:35 am and is filed under Benicia, Buying, Market Update, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo. 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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