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San Luis Obispo County Real Estate Sales SlowingMonday, May 22, 2006The Tribune ran an article yesterday about San Luis Obispo County's slowing homes sales. Realtors are carrying about twice the number of listings they were last year, homes are staying on the market longer, and price reductions are beginning to be common.After several sizzling years, the San Luis Obispo County housing market is cooling off, say economists and local Realtors. Homes are still commanding high prices, but some real estate agents are seeing the need to drop prices by as much as 3 percent from what sellers were getting a year ago. There are more homes on the market, and homes are no longer selling in just a few weeks. The median number of days on the market countywide has risen from about 30 last year to roughly 60 to 70 days now. Rising mortgage interest rates are cooling once-hot demand for houses. In the past year, the housing market has shifted from hot to normal as rising interest rates have resulted in cautious buyers, real estate experts say. Median home prices are climbing, but homeowners should not expect to see the double-digit appreciation that was common in recent years. The median price of an existing, single-family home in the county was $586,270 in March, an increase of 18 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the California Association of Realtors. The median is the statistical point where half of the homes sell for more and half for less. Sales, meanwhile, are slowing. The number of homes sold in the county dipped 18 percent in March compared with the same month in the previous year, according to the association, which bases its figures on Multiple Listing Service information. The association will release its April median price and sales figures on Thursday. Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, said he expected April sales statewide to dip 15 percent to 20 percent from last year. The statewide median, he said, would probably go up by about 10 percent compared with April 2005. DataQuick Information Systems, a Southern California research firm that generates its statistics from county data, put the April county median home price of $539,500, an increase of 9 percent compared with the same period last year. Sales of county new and resale homes and condos fell 28 percent in April compared with the same period last year, according to DataQuick. In April, there were 326 sales, compared to 453 in April 2005. But Dan Hamilton, director of economics for the UCSB Economic Forecast Project, isn't prepared to call it a buyers' market - yet. "Mortgage rates are still relatively low by historical standards," he said. "It's just not that bad; it's not that high." Other factors also play into San Luis Obispo County's favor, Hamilton said. There isn't a large supply of housing, and what is available is considered affordable when compared to major metropolitan areas, and even Monterey and Santa Barbara, which posted median prices in March of $685,000 and $750,000 respectively. And rural communities such as San Luis Obispo County are highly attractive to wealthy baby boomers who want to retire where the quality of life is high, he said. "Coastal communities aren't large, and it doesn't take a massive number of retirees coming from the outside to make an impact on the real estate market," he said. "While the impact of retirees may slow a little bit in a year or two, more waves of them will retire in another four or five years." Even so, changes in the local housing market are hitting home for many sellers and agents who are used to dealing with fewer listings and residences that sell in a week. Buyers are simply becoming more value conscious. Agents are not the only people noticing the slowdown. Builders are also adapting to a return to a normal market, said Jerry Bunin, legislative affairs director of the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast. For one builder, this is the first time in three to four years that it has had any standing inventory unsold, Bunin said. That means that a home is built, ready to be occupied and isn't yet purchased. "One builder said that up until six months ago, their homes were sold before they broke ground," he said. Now, they have had standing inventory for the past two to three weeks. In response, some builders are offering incentives. They include knocking off about $100,000 during a weekend, buying down the interest rate for buyers, allowing people to trade up to a newer property and offering upgrades such as nicer cabinets or kitchen counters. Article: Home sales losing steam Julie Lynem, The Tribune Tags: San Luis Obispo Central Coast Real Estate |
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