Real Estate News for Wednesday, March 1st, 2006

Home Sales Plummet. As the number of existing home sales drops around the nation, San Diego is being hit disproportionately hard. The drop off in the sales rate in America's Finest City was four times the national average in January, a decline experts said was unexpectedly steep. In a press release issued Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors said the seasonally adjusted existing home sales rate in January 2006 was 5.2 percent lower than in January 2005. The seasonally adjusted rate is a method analysts use to calculate the number of sales taking place, and which takes into account the fact that certain months are always slow for real estate. While significant, that figure is tame compared to the statistics for San Diego. Seasonally adjusted existing home sales rates in San Diego County were down 20.2 percent in January 2006 compared to 2005, according to the California Association of Realtors. None of the local experts seem particularly surprised by the drop-off in sales, though. Click here to read more.

State home sales plunge. Home sales plummet, but prices still on rise. Home sales tumbled an annual 24 percent across California during January, the biggest drop in more than a decade and further evidence that the latest boom market is past its peak, a trade group said Tuesday. Price gains remained strong in most areas, though, and analysts do not believe the sales decline will trigger a price collapse that followed the sales bust at the end of the late 1980s buying binge. January's sales plunge was the biggest since a 26.7 percent decline in April 1995, said Mark Giberson, a spokesman for the California Association of Realtors. Sales fell from their year-ago levels in 19 of 20 markets the association tracks, including a 23.5 percent decline in Los Angeles County, a 16.3 percent drop in Ventura County, a 19.1 percent slide in the Inland Empire and a 24.2 percent drop in Orange County. The biggest decline, 39.3 percent, came in Monterey County. By comparison, sales across the U.S. fell an annual 5.2 percent in January, according to the National Association of Realtors. Click here to read more.

~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
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