Bakersfield area home prices flat, foreclosures losing steam
| Tuesday, Nov 08 2011 04:01 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Nov 08 2011 04:03 PM
The median sale price of a single-family home in the Bakersfield area was nearly unchanged in October, rising 0.8 percent to $132,000 from September but down 2.2 percent over the same month last year.
That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.
Supply dropped 4.2 percent to 1,079 active listings, not including contingent offers awaiting approval from sellers or lenders. Those are, for the most part, short sales, or transactions in which lenders agree to let borrowers sell properties for less than they owe on the mortgage.
Those transactions need to be segregated from other active listings, Crabtree wrote in his report, because short sales take, on average, 145 days to close, assuming they close at all.
"It should be noted that some of these contingent offers are not accepted and ultimately, they are placed back on the market as active listings and/or they proceed to foreclosure and the next time they appear as lender-owned listings," Crabtree said.
Total supply dropped 4.8 percent to 1,821 in October, and was down 31.6 percent year-over-year.
There's still a lot of foreclosure activity in and around Bakersfield, which is providing a steady stream of inventory, but it is losing momentum.
Foreclosures dropped 9.9 percent to 408 from September to October, down 36.1 percent since October 2010.
Demand fell slightly last month, which is typical for this time of year. Home sales always peak over the summer break in the school year and fall off toward the end of the year, when buyers and sellers are more focused on the holidays.
There were 522 closed sales in October, down 11.4 percent for the month and off 7.1 percent for the year.
On the positive side, pending sales rose 19 percent to 500 from September to October, a heartening 43.7 percent increase over October of last year.
Market strength remains good with sellers accepting only an average 2 percent discount from their asking price, but Crabtree cautioned that that figure is skewed slightly by some agents deliberately pricing homes below their market value in hopes of spurring a bidding war.
Properties owned by lenders continue to play a major role in the market, accounting for 40.5 percent of all sales here compared with a national average of 30.1 percent.
Overall, homes sat on the market an average of 79 days last month before selling.
