Sales Stagnating

I’m not sure where he got his numbers, but Bob Casagrand posted on the Realty Times Web site that single-family home sales for the month of June were down 33 percent from the same month in 2005.

Second quarter 2006 sales were down 30 percent from the second quarter of last year. And what’s even more surprising to Casagrand is that second quarter 2006 home sales were “slightly below” fourth quarter 2005 sales.

Here’s what he writes:

Who would have thought that the peak April, May and June months would have lower sales than the winter/holiday months of October, November and December. That provides a very good picture of what has happened to the demand for housing.

As for July, Casagrand compiled a “rough check” for sales as of July 9, and compared this year’s sales to 2005.

He found that 933 homes were sold in the first nine days of July 2005, for an average price of $629,168 and an average size of 1,749 square feet. By comparison, only 303 homes were sold in the same time period this year, for an average price of $559,577 and an average size of 1,781 square feet.

About the large price drop, Casagrand writes:

I debated about putting this in this writing because the numbers are scary and they will close somewhat by the end of the month.

But he decided to post the data anyway:

so that we can see the mountain ahead to maintain some level of reasonable demand.

Casagrand’s straight-shooting report caused quite a stir on thehousingbubbleblog.com, where blogger Ben Jones posted a large portion of Casagrand’s analysis under the heading “A Telling Time for San Diego.”

There were more than 40 responses to the post. One commenter speculated that Casagrand may have written his last column for Realty Times. Another wrote about the analyst’s “bearish” tendencies, saying that his straight-shooting analysis has garnered him respect. That commenter added, “I am curious though if he has suffered any retribution from the RE community.”

You can read Casagrand’s analysis here

– KELLY BENNETT