Which Came First? Decline in Home Sales or...

...Decline in Reporting Quality?

This is the title of today's Press Democrat article on the housing market: "Home sales plummet in North Bay, state"

written by: Michael Coit of THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

"April home sales tumbled across California and the North Bay, with rising interest rates keeping more buyers out of the market, the California Association of Realtors reported Thursday."

"Home sales have been declining since fall. But April's 21 percent drop was particularly steep because the sales total a year ago was the second-highest ever for the state."

1. Old news. We have had the April numbers for the north bay for a couple of weeks now.

2. I thought this was about sales plummeting in the North Bay and the state? Where are the actual sales numbers about the North Bay in this article? Did he not put "North Bay" first in the title leading one to believe that the plummeted sales would be the main subject?

"The statewide median resale price was $562,380, a 10 percent increase over a year ago."

3. Just for kicks... here is the Sonoma County median since he neglected to report it:

The April median resale price was $596,925, the second consecutive month with little change compared with prices a year ago.

Sonoma: $618,000
Glen Ellen: $714,000
Sebastopol: $618,500
Petaluma: $649,500
Healdsburg: $655,000
Penngrove: $942,500
Cotati: $672,000
Windsor: $594,475
Rohnert Park: $580,000
Santa Rosa: $570,000

"The greatest gains were on the Central Coast, in Los Angeles and in the Inland Empire."

4. What are those numbers and what were the gains?

"Prices were up 5 percent to $638,680 in the association's Northern Wine Country region of Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties."

5. Ah... this must be what he meant by "North Bay." He combined Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino County data to get a higher median price so he could claim the 5 percent gain. However, Sonoma County did not enjoy a 5% gain. Median price was only a hair above 2005. Sonoma County posted a 0.90% gain.













"Statewide, homes took 42 days to sell compared to 28 days a year ago. Slowing sales have boosted the statewide inventory of homes for sale to a 5.6-month supply compared to 2.4 months a year ago."

6. Interesting state data. Let's talk about Sonoma County data... since the North Bay numbers seem to be lacking here, I feel compelled to go ahead and help Michael out and re-post yet again the Sonoma County data. Wouldn't want any potential fools to think that the state data was representative of Sonoma County data and go rushing in to hold the bag for some over-extended flipper.

According to rereport.com's April Data for Sonoma County the average count for Days on the Market is: 85 In April of 2005 it was 59

Sonoma: 100
Glen Ellen: 217
Santa Rosa: 90
Rohnert Park: 69
Petaluma: 55
Sebastopol: 87
Penngrove: 98
Healdsburg: 90
Cotati: 132
Windsor: 75

Sonoma County has 3425 listings on the mls.

7. At the current rate of sales based on April data that translates into 9.01 months of inventory on the market.

8. Since Michael mentioned Napa and apparently used at least the pricing data to make that laughable 5% gain claim, according to dataquick: From April 2005 to April 2006, sales in the state fell most in Napa County, down 39 percent.

9. When your sales are down almost 40% just how long are those prices going to rise? Fundamental law of supply and demand... when there is no demand, prices will fall.

10. According to Ziprealty the number of Sonoma County houses with recent price reductions is: 871

Sales for Sonoma County were down -24.60%

380 homes were sold in April of 2006 compared with 504 for April 2005.

Bodega Bay -42.90%
Cloverdale -26.70%
Cotati -45.50%
Guerneville -13.30%
Healdsburg -26.70%
Petaluma -32.40%
Rohnert Park -28.60%
Santa Rosa -21.60%
Sebastopol -18.50%
Sonoma Valley -47.90%

So with all that down data what was it that allowed the county only a -24.60% decline?

ah... glad you asked.

Forestville sold 9 properties with an average of 110 days on the market, and had an 80% gain from last year.

Glen Ellen sold 2 properties with an average of 217 days on the market, and had a 100% gain from last year.

Windsor sold 38 properties with an average of 75 days on the market, and had an 18.8% gain from last year.