Santa Clara County posted only a slight gain in home sales last month compared with April 2009, but the median home price jumped 26 percent.
The median price of previously owned single-family houses sold last month was $550,000, up 26.4 percent from $435,000 in April 2009, and flat from March 2010, according to a report Thursday from MDA DataQuick. The median condo price rose 31 percent from last year, to $335,000.
In San Mateo County, the median price of houses sold in April was $638,000, up 16 percent from a year earlier and down 9 percent from March. The median marks the halfway mark, meaning half the homes sold in April cost less than the median figure, and half cost more.
The number of houses sold in San Mateo County rose 21 percent from April 2009, with 442 houses changing hands.
In Santa Clara County, 1,185 houses sold last month, up just 1.2 percent from the same time last year, and up 7 percent from March of this year. By contrast, sales in the last few months of last year and in March this year increased by double-digit percentages compared with year-earlier totals.
April was “another month with some progress and no disaster,” said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.
Fewer foreclosed properties are in the mix, he said, while sales of more expensive homes are picking up. But home sales and prices won’t rise dramatically, Levy said, adding: “The best we can hope for is slow progress as the backlog of potential foreclosures and short sales is worked off while job and income levels rebound slowly.”
For the nine-county Bay Area, combined sales of all types of homes — new and previously owned houses and condos — dropped slightly in April from year-earlier levels. A total of 7,003 homes sold, down 1.9 percent from April 2009, and up a fraction from 6,992 sales in March.
Last month’s sales were the second-lowest for an April in DataQuick’s records, which go back 22 years. The only April with fewer sales was in 1995.
DataQuick, which gathers information from public records, speculated that the relatively anemic number of April transactions was due in part to some buyers delaying closing dates to qualify for a $10,000 California tax credit. That credit for first-time and new-home buyers went into effect May 1.
But some local mortgage brokers said they doubted many sales were put on hold so buyers could qualify. Cathy Warshawsky of Bay Area Loan in San Jose said she had not heard of any.
“I personally think it’s jobs” that are responsible for the tepid April sales, she said. “First-time homebuyers, I think, are still scared about their jobs.”
Oscar Apostol is a first-time buyer who got the keys last week to the San Jose home he bought in a short-sale transaction. He and his wife purchased the three-bedroom house after making about 10 losing offers over the course of a year.
“It’s scary times still” in the economy and job market, he said, but he feels he got a bargain, paying $480,000. “We got lucky with this house.”
Royce Cablayan, a Coldwell Banker agent in Los Altos, said plenty of buyers are still out visiting open houses, but there’s a “lack of urgency” now that the deadline for the federal government’s homebuyer tax credit has passed. When sellers price their homes right and fix them up to show nicely, multiple offers are common, he said.
Vicki Moore, an Alain Pinel agent in San Mateo, agreed, saying that homes in the $500,000 price range in San Mateo County “are getting snapped up pretty fast.”
Contact Sue McAllister at 408-920-5833.
