Home Sales are Picking Up!

November, 3 2008

By Joel Persinger
YourRealEstateDude.com

Just because the media is all up in arms over the economy, doesn’t mean that everything is going badly. The economy is having a tough time, but in the real estate world, things are beginning to look up.

The California Association of Realtors recently reported home sales figures for the month of September. According to the Association, “Home sales increased 96.7 percent in September in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 40.9 percent. Statewide sales in September edged past the 500,000 threshold for the first time in more than two years, rising 2.3 percent compared with August and 96.7 percent compared with a year ago.”

C.A.R. President William E. Brown said, “This dramatic increase in sales owes as much to market weakness a year ago in the early stages of the credit crunch, as it does to the growth of sales in September this year. Similar increases occurred in the early 1980s when the market was climbing out of a comparatively steep downturn in sales.

It is true, that much of the increase is due to the terrible condition of the market the previous year, but we should not forget that this year’s market could be just as bad as the previous year’s, but its not! On the contrary, real estate sales are showing the kind of gradual improvement that can be expected when recovering from the damage done by the disintegration of the mortgage market. It may not be anything worth throwing a party over, but its one solid step in the right direction and some believe it is a harbinger of things to come. Association President Brown said, “We expect the market to register significant year-to-year percentage gains in the coming months as current sales are compared against extremely low numbers that prevailed during the fourth quarter of last year.”

Nobody can state definitively that the housing market is on the rebound. There simply is not enough data available to tell. Still, a year over year increase in sales of almost 100 percent in September is unquestionably good news. If nothing else, it tells us that sales are increasing and that the San Diego real estate market, while injured, is not dead!