The median price per square foot of San Diego resale homes took a hit last month. Home prices by this measure were down 3.5 percent for single family homes, 2.4 percent for condos, and 3.0 percent in aggregate.
December’s price decline more or less nullifies the last of the effects of the stimulus-driven 2010 spring rally, bringing the median price per square foot back into the range it inhabited in late 2009 and early 2010. In fact, December prices were 1.2 percent lower than a year prior — the first negative year-over-year change since October 2009.
Closed sales bounced, but pending sales declined. These are both typical patterns for December:
Inventory continued the gentle downslope that began in the autumn:
But the decline in the number of homes for sale was overpowerd by the drop in pending sales, resulting in an increase in the number of months’ worth of inventory.
For a few months now, the level of available supply in comparison to demand (as measured by months of inventory) has suggested that prices would trend flat-to-down. So the December price decline comes as no surprise. Things could change in the new year, but for now, inventory levels continue to presage prices that are flat at best, with a decent chance of being a little worse than that.
Please contact Rich Toscano at rtoscano@pcasd.com and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/richtoscano.