California Realtors: bigger inventories, slower sales in February

California Realtors report bigger inventories, slower sales in February
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal - 12:43 PM PST Thursday

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/03/20/daily49.html

There were more homes on the market than a year ago and it took longer to sell them in California in February, the state's Realtor Group said on Thursday. The California Association of Realtors said its unsold inventory index, which measures how many months it would take to sell the inventory of existing single-family homes, rose to 6.7 months in February from 6 months in January. The median number of days it took to sell a home increased to 52 days from 48 days in the first two months of the year, compared to 40 days in February 2005.

Despite that, CAR also said that while the number of sales declined again in February, the pace of that drop slowed. The year-to-year drop in sales slowed to 15.5 percent in February, compared to a 24.1 percent decrease reported in January. The year-to-year increase in median price remained relatively steady, up 13.7 percent at $470,920.

"The California real estate market is beginning to experience the soft landing that we expect to be the underlying dynamic driving the housing market this year," said Leslie Appleton-Young, CAR's vice president and chief economist. "The number of homes for sale has risen to a six-month supply, which will translate into a slower rate of price appreciation than we experienced in 2005." CAR also released the following regional sales and price comparisons for February:

* Santa Clara sales dropped 15.3 percent year-to-year but were up 5.6 percent from January, while the median price rose 8.5 percent to $765,000 from February 2005.
* Sales in Santa Cruz County dropped 23.6 percent year-to-year but were up 0.9 percent from January, while the median price declined 2.5 percent to $712,000 from February 2005.
* Monterey County sales dropped 16 percent year-to-year but rose 18.3 percent from January, while the median price rose 10.2 percent to $700,000 from February 2005.
* San Francisco Bay Area sales dropped 12.3 percent year-to-year and were down 0.6 percent from January, while the median price rose 6.1 percent to $719,220 from February 2005.

the property taxes---oy! God forbid we ever talk about revising prop 13.

and from what my husband is telling me, Naples, Florida too.