what a bummer

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:47 pm

California housing market still sizzling
Surging demand in June kept driving up sales volume, prices
SPECIAL REPORT

Updated: 3:13 p.m. ET July 20, 2005
LOS ANGELES - In the 1980s, 1,000-square-foot houses in the fashionable city of West Hollywood were selling for $300,000, recalls real estate broker Rory Barish. Now, those homes are going for $1.8 million — and prices keep climbing.

In the San Francisco Bay area, the value of a typical house increased $99,000 in the past year alone.

Demand for California houses and condos kept surging in June, driving sales volume and prices to record highs even as the annual rate of home appreciation declined in some areas, the DataQuick Information Systems real estate research firm said Tuesday.

"Because there is no supply, the demand is great," said Barish, of Beverly Hills.

The median price paid for a home in California last month was $445,000, up 4.2 percent from $427,000 in May and 16.5 percent from $382,000 in June 2004, DataQuick found.

Homes have appreciated about 40 percent since 2002, when many economists and real estate market watchers began issuing warnings that the state's housing market was in danger of overheating.

But while the rate of appreciation has begun to ebb gradually in some markets over the past year, housing demand and favorable mortgage interest rates have driven prices higher and kept the market hot.

"We keep expecting it to start to taper off and it just keeps going along," said John Karevoll, a DataQuick analyst.

In the process, the average price of even a single-family home in many areas of the state has crept well beyond the half-million dollar mark.

Some 42.6 percent of the homes sold in California in June went for a half-million dollars or more, DataQuick said. Nearly 10 million people in the state live in areas where the median housing price exceeded $500,000; by comparison, the national median home price in May was $172,000.

Barish said that in most of the popular areas in Los Angeles County — where the median home price last month was $475,000 — buyers would be hard-pressed to find a single-family home for less than $500,000.

"You might be able to find something for $600,000. ... Maybe way out in North Hollywood or Woodland Hills," she said.

Last month, Orange joined the ranks of counties with a median home price above $600,000.

Ten counties — led by Marin and others in the San Francisco Bay area — had a median home price above $500,000 during the month, DataQuick said. The median price in Marin County jumped to $815,000 in June, an 18.1 percent increase over the year-ago period.

Demand and attractive mortgage rates helped push the median price for a single-family home in the nine San Francisco Bay area counties to a record $644,000 in June, up 18.2 percent from June 2004.

Sales of all dwellings in the region reached 13,014, the second-highest tally for any month since 1988, DataQuick said.

The typical mortgage payment that California home buyers committed to paying last month was $1,934, up from $1,899 in May, and up from $1,814 in June 2004. Adjusted for inflation, the June mortgage payment figure is about 6 percent below the 1989 peak.

June also set a record for the number of homes sold — 67,750 — up 21.5 percent from 55,750 in May and 1.3 percent from 66,850 in June 2004. DataQuick's records go back to 1988.

Home prices in June reversed what had been a gradual, five-month decline in price appreciation rates. But despite the home-buying fervor, many economists say they still expect the growth rate of home prices to slow through the rest of the year.

Some housing markets, like San Diego County, which took off in the early part of the decade, have seen appreciation rates slow to single digits. Others, like San Bernardino County, posted a 30 percent increase in June.

"Southern California is kind of nearing the end of a cycle there whereas the Bay area probably has a bit more gains ahead of it," Karevoll said.

Home prices in Alameda County vaulted by more than 20 percent between June 2004 and June 2005, according to DataQuick. The median for a standalone home was $620,000 last month. That was ahead of the region's lowest median of $448,000 in Solano County.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

BobCatFan · Post by **BobCatFan** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:51 pm

No wonder they keep coming? They can sell their home, buy a nicer home in Montana and live off the interest with the balance. Pretty good gig if you can afford to get into the Calf market.

gtapp · Post by **gtapp** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:55 pm

Our main office is in the Bay area. Two employee's bought 1400 sq. ft. homes in the last two years. Both homes are in so-so neighborhoods and both went for just under $1M. We can only hire people that currently live in the area since the housing costs are too high for someone moving from outside of CA.

It has helped many CA residents retire early. Many have made $1 - $2M profit on the sale of their home.

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:04 pm

my parents built in 1989 in SF bay area, and currently the house is worth 3x what they paid. it backfires too because they can't sell it or they'll take a huge hit. mom wants to move home to Montana, could get back the family ranch, but taxes kill you. sad, they could buy one hell of a nice place in exchange for a 3000 sf home on an mere 10,000 sf lot.

-rebecca

'93HonoluluCat · Post by **'93HonoluluCat** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:07 pm

Prices of homes on Oahu (the island that Honolulu is on) rose 45% in the last 12 months. :-&

geogfather · Post by **geogfather** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 3:04 am

'93HonoluluCat wrote:Prices of homes on Oahu (the island that Honolulu is on) rose 45% in the last 12 months. :-&

While I dont doubt that some homes in certain areas increased by that much, im sure the average home did not as the highest appreciation according to the association of realtors is in bradenton Florida at almost 46%. Oahu is on the list though at 26% But with an average home price of over 500k even an average jump is crazy!

when I moved to vegas about a year and a half ago the average home price was about 174k. Its now over 300K and still climbing. wish I would have bought then instead of last month. Oh well.

mquast53000 · Post by **mquast53000** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:39 am

While I lived in Glasgow, Montana the most expensive house I remember seeing was about $75,000. There were also places in St. Marie (closed Air Force Base about 20 miles out of Glasgow) that had houses for sale for as little as $5,000! A little different then the Bay area…

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:47 am

when I purchased my current house in yelm, wa 2 months ago, I paid what i felt was reasonable 250K for 2000 sf, not huge but still okay for a family of 4. of course i like being in a hick town of 3000 people and surrounded by farms and cattle. I have to drive over 20 miles to get to Tumwater and 30 to get to Olympia to do shopping, i don't mind the commute. this same size house in Olympia is over 300k

scary part is it cost the same in Missoula or Bozeman for the same size home, so the only place i can afford to give the kids more room would be Great Falls. Not so bad anymore, it's building up some nice areas, but winter in Great falls, makes me want to stay in WA.

-rebecca

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:22 am

Back to Story - Help
Existing Home Sales Set Record in June By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
2 minutes ago

Sales of existing homes set a new record in July with home prices shooting up at the fastest pace in nearly 25 years.

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 7.33 million units last month, a gain of 2.7 percent from the May sales pace.

The torrid sales pace helped to push the median price of an existing home up to a record of $219,000 last month, a gain of 14.7 percent from the median, or midpoint, for prices a year ago. That was the biggest jump in prices since November 1980.

The June performance was better than expectations as the nation's housing market continued to flash signals that some parts of the country could be in the grip of what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last week called a "speculative fervor."

The concern is that housing prices are rising at a pace that is unsustainable and that in some parts of the country could start declining if rising interest rates begin to weaken demand.

Such a development could spell trouble for homeowners who find the value of their homes falling below the value of the mortgage they obtained to finance the purchase.

For June, sales were strong in all regions of the country. Sales in the West rose by 5.5 percent. Sales were up 3.4 percent in the Northeast, 1.9 percent in the Midwest and 1.1 percent in the South.

The performance in June beat expectations. Many economists had expected sales last month would be flat, given the strong increases in previous months.

"Just when you think sales activity is ready to settle into a more sustainable pace, the housing market continues to surprise," said David Lereah, chief economist at the Realtors.

Lereah said the boom in housing is being driven by mortgage rates which, defying expectations, have remained near rock-bottom levels this year even as the Federal Reserve has continued to raise short-term interest rates.

However, mortgage rates have risen in the past three weeks, according to a national survey by mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Lereah said as long as rates continue to rise slowly, he predicted that sales of both new and existing homes will decline only slightly in the second half of the year.

Sales of both existing and new homes have set records in the past four years and many analysts are looking for both sales groups to climb to new records this year as well.

Grizlaw · Post by **Grizlaw** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 9:14 am

I saw a blurb on the web last week where Forbes listed the top ten "overpriced" cities to live in, with "overpriced" being defined in a manner that reflected both cost of living and average income for the city, such that the cities that topped the list are ones where COL has gone up in recent years without a proportionate increase in incomes. (I wasn't able to find a link easily right now, and I don't have time to hunt for it at the moment, but if anyone is interested I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to find -- it was published by Forbes, last Thursday or Friday.)

Anyway -- Seattle topped the list, which makes sense since its job market was hit hard by the dot com bubble and the semi-departure of Boeing. NYC came in at #2, which makes sense since the average condo in Manhattan sells for about $1.5 million, and no level of income really justifies that as an expense.

I don't recall the rest of the list, but all of the cities you would expect (i.e. LA, SF/SV, CHI) were all in there somewhere.

mquast53000 · Post by **mquast53000** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:19 am

Well now look what those Californians have brought to our beautiful state of Montana! Earthquakes! First they come to our state and jack up the housing prices, and now this...

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.ph ... -quake.inc

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 11:24 am

Any posters in here old enough to remember when Helena had one of the original schools in the Montana University system leveled? I lived in Billings when the quake formed Quake Lake below Hebgen and mention it only because I was bounced out of bed and my mother's china got busted up pretty good. Go online and check out the Ft. Myers and Naples housing costs in the last five years. Looks like they're going to have to drain some more swamp to accomodate all the folks moving there--especially the fishermen and women (love what the women wear fishing)

Interesting aspect to all of the growth is that Lee County Florida has absorbed 5k students a year for the last five years--now ya'll know where the 20k kids Montana lost in the last five years went

geogfather · Post by **geogfather** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:06 pm

Cat Grad wrote:Any posters in here old enough to remember when Helena had one of the original schools in the Montana University system leveled? I lived in Billings when the quake formed Quake Lake below Hebgen and mention it only because I was bounced out of bed and my mother's china got busted up pretty good. Go online and check out the Ft. Myers and Naples housing costs in the last five years. Looks like they're going to have to drain some more swamp to accomodate all the folks moving there--especially the fishermen and women (love what the women wear fishing) Interesting aspect to all of the growth is that Lee County Florida has absorbed 5k students a year for the last five years--now ya'll know where the 20k kids Montana lost in the last five years went

While I am far too young to remember anyhting about the hebgen lake quake. I was in summer class at UM when the 4.something quake hit outside of lincoln. We didnt really feel much, but the markers for the marker board rattled off their tray and on to the floor. kind of wierd and it sounded like a train was going through nearby.

As for growth, 5K students a year doesnt seem like that much for sucha fast growing area. Although I am sure there are a few reasons for that. I would imagine that the district is only part of the town and that nearby areas of fast growth have thier own district. I would also imagine it has something to do with the population of those moving to florida. I would imagine it is still mostly retirees, but I could be wrong.

Growth in vegas in the lasst 5 years has been insane. the last two years we have gained 13K each year and over 10k each of the three years before that. but with nearly 6K people moving here every month I guess its expected. I would imagine that growth will slow somewhat as home prices continue to rise and Rental properties continue to get converted into condominiums, driving the price of rent up as supply goes down.