San Mateo County housing sales still dropping

From InsideBayArea.com...

22 percent fewer homes sold in February in comparison to last year
By Tim Simmers, BUSINESS WRITER
Article Created: 03/12/2008 02:39:49 AM PDT

Home sales continued to fall in San Mateo County in February, as tighter lending standards and waning consumer confidence pulled buyers from the market.

Home sales sagged 22 percent compared with February 2007, according to the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

The median price of a single-family home rose slightly to $913,450 in February, up from $870,000 in February 2007.

"Buyers are feeling uncomfortable with the market, and their confidence in the economy is low," said Denise Aquila, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Today in San Carlos. "It's very frightening to think of buying now, and in two years the house is worth less than you paid for it."

Aquila said lenders' guidelines and rates are changing daily, causing confusion for buyers. Throw in high gas prices and relentless company layoffs, and buyer confidence is on the decline, Aquila said.

As foreclosures continue rising around the county — they were up threefold in January — home prices continue to be dragged down dramatically in blue-collar areas such as Daly City, San Bruno and South San Francisco.

In Daly City, the median price of a home in February was $577,450, down more than $150,000 from $743,000 in February 2007. The median price in South San Francisco was $608,500 in February, down from $766,250 in February 2007.

The median price is the midpoint of theprice range, with half the homes selling for more than the median figure and half selling for less.

Though the county is less affected than counties in the East Bay and Central Valley, the mortgage crisis continues to hurt local contractors, real estate agents, loan companies, lumber companies, hardware stores, painters and anybody else who depends on home sales for a living.

"Banks are dumping foreclosed homes on the market in Daly City and San Bruno, just to get them off the books," Aquila said. "That's pushing down the value of homes in the neighborhoods of the foreclosures."

"The areas where first-time home buyers stretched to get in are really hurting," said Tom Diridon, a broker with Carlmont Associates in Belmont. "A lot of those people shouldn't have been first-time buyers."

Parts of East Palo Alto and eastern San Mateo are also seeing home prices fall due to foreclosure problems, he said.

In Belmont, where 25 or 30 homes typically sell in a month, only five sold in February, Diridon said.

The average number of days a house spent on the market in February jumped to 84 countywide, up from 69 in February 2007. Many offers accepted are below the asking price, the report shows. In many cases, the selling price is down 10 percent or more, especially in working-class neighborhoods.

The median price of a condominium in the county was $485,000 in February, down from $558,000 in February 2007.