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Dataquick reported home sales for Ventura County for January 2010 today. Home sales came in at 530 down 8.3% YoY. The median sales price came in at $360,000 up 7.5% YoY. This report was exactly in line with the prediction I made at the beginning of the month. Slowing YoY sales due to constricted inventory, the second worst monthly sales on record. The market is in an artificial state, low sales and high prices because that is exactly the stated goal of the various government agencies. It is amazing to think that their goal is to keep housing unaffordable but that is exactly what is happening.
Just to add to the insanity, I have a bid in on another house. The price isn't great but the house meets every one of our other criteria and I've only seen one other houses since 2005 that has done that even close to our price range.
Here is the sales breakdown for the San Fernando Valley for January 2010. The SFV has a lot more late reporters as a percentage of sales and so it is a bit tougher to discern right now just how weak or strong sales will ultimately be for January. It appears that sales should be higher YoY when all the late reporters are counted but not significantly strong. These sales levels are extremely weak historically and just an indication of this highly engineered market.
Here are the sales for Ventura County for January 2010. Sales are still very low, with late reporters I expect the official Dataquick numbers will be down a bit YoY at around 550 sales. This continued stagnation in the market is the same boring story, less supply due to government intervention trying to keep prices high at all costs. I don't see any signs of the ice melting yet just more of the same with a bit of seasonal inventory coming on market. The stuff in the affordable ranges gets gobbled up quickly, the overpriced stuff just sits.
If you think I get bored typing the same thing month after month since last January or so you'd be right!
Trustee sales for January 2010 in Ventura County came in at 271. With the Treasury announcing the HAMP foreclosure freeze I am surprised sales were even this "good". So far the market is still in a static state. The HAMP guidance given last week gives me a bit of hope that the impasse might be broken but it is an election year and people have shown an unending capacity for doing anything to prolong the crisis instead of dealing with reality.
Los Angeles County Trustee sales came in at 3069 for January 2010. Essentially flat compared to the last quarter of 2009.
Orange County trustee sales for January 2010 came in at 820. As always I am impressed with the number of third party sales in the OC.
San Diego trustee sales for January 2010 came in at 1285, Basically flat relative to the last quarter of 2009.
San Fernando Valley Single Family Home sales for January 2010 came in at 494 which is down 22.45% MoM and down 4.63% YoY. The median price for single family homes came in at $380,000 which is down 5.00% MoM and up 8.57% YoY. The supply constrained market is hurting sales in the SFV. Based on what I am seeing in the weekly inventory reports that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.
Condo sales came in at 204 which is down 13.55% MoM and up 22.90% YoY. Median price for condos came in at $215,000 which is down 10.41% MoM and up 13.15% YoY. Condos are faring much better than SFH because there is more supply due to all the new condo construction during the boom 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. Anyways the predictor is predicting sales flat for February. 
