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Ugly February Home Sale Numbers For Solano County: Are We Taking A Step Back?

March 15th, 2010 categories: Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Market Update, Selling, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo

With the exception of  Suisun City, February was a pretty ugly month for home sales and prices in the other four cities in our Solano County market area, according to the monthly statistics I just downloaded.

County-wide, the median sales price for February was $190,000 — a 7% drop from January’s $205,000. It hasn’t been that low since last June.

Contributing to that drop-off was Benicia (-26% from January), Fairfield (-19%), Vacaville (-9%) and Vallejo (-4%).

Feb Median Price GraphAlong with prices, the number of closed sales was also down throughout most of the county: Benicia -25%, Vallejo -17%, and Vacaville -6%. Fairfield, however, posted a 6% increase.

But the only city which really bucked the downward trend in February was Suisun, where the median price rose 6% and the number of closed sales was up a whopping 33%.

The complete monthly statistics are in my February 2010 Monthly Home Sale Report for Solano County. Here are a few city-by-city highlights (or maybe “lowlights” is a better choice) from that report:

  • Benicia — The median sales price for February was $311,375, which is the lowest it’s been since last February. Its 18 closed sales were the fewest since last April.
  • Fairfield — February’s median price was $190,000, the lowest its been since September. Although there were 7 more closed sales than in January, it’s 115 closings in February is still the second lowest total over the past 112 months.
  • Suisun City — Suisun’s $196,500 median price is the second highest figure over the past 12 months. However, before you get too giddy over Suisun’s 33% jump in closed sales last month, consider that its 32 sales in February was the second lowest total over the past year.  February’s increase only looks remarkable because January’s total was down so much (more than 50% from the previous month).
  • Vacaville — February’s median of $215,000 was the lowest its been since I started tracking these numbers in late 2008. The median price is down 17% from last February’s $258,000.  Its 66 sales total was also the lowest over the past year.
  • Vallejo — The median ($150,000) was last this low in October. However, Vallejo’s median is still quite a bit higher than it was last spring, when it hovered between $125,000-$140,000. A year ago it was $135,000. The sales total of 116 is Vallejo’s low water mark over the past 12 months.

So all of this begs the question: Are we taking a step back?

Well, before you read too much into all of these numbers, remember that a one-month sample size is fairly small — particularly for cities like Benicia and Suisun, which have a relatively small inventory of homes for sale.

So a few random sales at one end of the spectrum can often artificially skew the numbers and provide a false illusion of what’s really happening in the market.

Right now, we’re still seeing multiple offers on most homes below $300,000. And though the inventory has bumped up a bit since the beginning of the year, it hasn’t increased enough to slow the demand.

Rather, with the home buyer tax credit set to expire at the end of next month, if anything, there seems to be even more urgency among those eligible for the credit to get into contract right away.

Be sure to download the full February Home Sale Report For Solano County, which includes monthly totals for February and comparisons with the past 12 months and Feb. ‘09.

Please contact us for additional information or visit our Home Search page to find homes currently on the market in any of the cities in our Solano and Central Contra Costa market area.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, 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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