Sep 18, 2008 6:22 pm US/Pacific
Bay Area Home Prices Plunge 31%
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP) ―
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A sign indicating a reduced price is posted in front of a home for sale in East Palo Alto.
AP
A research firm said Thursday that home prices in the San Francisco Bay area plunged 31.8 percent in August.
MDA DataQuick said in its report that the median price for new and resale homes and condos in the nine-county area fell to $447,000 last month, from $655,000 in August 2007.
The figure also marks a decline from $470,000 in July.
There were 7,232 new and resale homes and condos sold during the month, down 0.9 percent from August 2007.
Sales were restrained by difficulty obtaining credit for the region's high-priced homes, MDA DataQuick president John Walsh said.
"Mortgage availability will eventually loosen up, we just don't know when, especially after the past few days," he said.
While higher-priced homes were hard to sell because jumbo loans are tougher to get, even for well-qualified buyers, there were exceptions in the most-distressed local markets.
In Contra Costa and Solano Counties, where foreclosure sales were highest and the prices were lowest, sales really picked up.
In Solano County, where the median price was $270,000, sales were up 43-percent from last year — with 61-percent of those sales on foreclosed properties.
Meantime, Marin County was no longer the most expensive county in the region to buy a house or condo in August.
After months of being an island unto itself, with prices staying at lofty levels, the Marin median dropped sharply last month to only $675,000 when counting all homes and condos.
That was down 25-percent compared to a year ago August when it was just shy of $900,000.
MDS DataQuick said foreclosure activity in Marin was still low compared to more distressed counties, like Sonoma, Contra Costa and Solano, but it represented almost 14-percent of sales last month.
Sales overall in Marin were down about six-percent, but condo sales were up 12-percent. Condo sales were up a roaring 34-percent in Sonoma County.
San Francisco had the highest median price at $822,000, down about 12-percent.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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