San Fernando Valley home sales report - November 2009

San Fernando Valley Single Family Home sales for November 2009 came in at 582 which is down 12.22% MoM and down 8.06% YoY. The median price for single family homes came in at $395,000 which is up 1.28% MoM and down 5.33% YoY. I doubt you will see the headline that this is the second worst November home sales on record but that is exactly what it is. The effort to remove supply off the market has worked but that means sales will stay at ultra low levels for the foreseeable future. We are going to have higher rates due to the stopping in MBS purchases and the tax credit being removed from market. It is hard to see exactly how the local market gets better unless more foreclosures or short sales make it on market. But this is exactly what the local, state and federal governments have been fighting against happening. It is going to be a tough slow grinding slog unless the market is allowed to find its equilibrium.

Condo sales came in at 201 which is down 11.84% MoM and up 1.01% YoY. Median price for condos came in at $225,000 which is down 4.26% MoM and up 2.27% YoY. Condos are faring a bit better than SFH because there is more supply and it appears some buyers are choosing to buy a condo when they can't find what they want in a detached home.

The red line was my attempt to create a predictor for sales but it hasn't been working out so well since May of this last year. IMHO, it appears that some pendings are being double counted, instead of falling out and going BOM (which would reduce my predictor), they are just switching buyers and updating the pending date which gets them counted in the current months pendings again. This is supposition on my part since I don't know how SRAR constructs their numbers but nothing much else makes sense. Also the dramatic drop in BOM this month is peculiar, I am thinking it is an error. Lately the SRAR stats have been a bit unreliable, I don't think the person in charge of that particular task is very competent (or just doesn't care).