San Diego’s median home price dropped nearly $10,000 in July compared to the same month last year, according to new DataQuick numbers released today.
July’s overall median price was $487,000, down 1.8 percent from July 2005’s median price of $496,000. The price also fell $1,000 from the previous month. (Update: I’m an idiot. This sentence originally had “$187,000” as the median. Hat tip to reader PL, for catching it.)
The median prices dropped year-on-year for the first time in a decade in June.
At the time, economist Alan Gin at the University of San Diego, attributed the price decrease to “statistical noise”.
But the data that showed a perhaps more significant decrease was the number of sales in the county. A total of 3,370 homes were sold last month, down 21.6 percent from June’s total of 4,301 and down 29.3 percent from last July’s total of 4,765.
The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune also reported the release of the new DataQuick numbers.
The U-T lent this analysis to the sales data:
It was the slowest July since 1996, near the end of San Diego’s last major real estate recession, when there were 3,096 sales. July was also the 25th straight month to see a year-over-year sales decline.
July sales often trail those of June, but this year the month-over-month drop was the biggest since DataQuick began keeping records in 1988.
The LA Times issued this forecast:
Even the most bullish housing analysts and real estate agents expect the rest of Southern California to eventually follow suit as rising interest rates and shrinking affordability tap the brakes on the region’s six-year-long boom.