Here's the latest Dataquick report for the state. No news here, the numbers are ugly. Sales are down 25% month to month and the median price is down over 7% month to month. Those are some BAD numbers folks!An estimated 32,163 new and resale houses and condos were sold statewide last month. That was down 24.0 percent from 42,293 in October and up 25.7 percent from 25,578 for November last year. Sales have increased on a year-over-year basis the last five months. California sales for the month of November have varied from last year's low to a peak of 60,326 in 2004, the average is 40,592. MDA DataQuick's statistics go back to 1988.
The median price paid for a home last month was $258,000, down 7.2 percent from $278,000 for the month before, and down 37.7 percent from $414,000 for November a year ago. Around half the drop in median is due to depreciation, the other half due to shifts in the types of homes selling, and how those homes are financed.
The typical mortgage payment that home buyers committed themselves to paying last month was $1,198. That was down from $1,310 in October, and down from $1,951 for November a year ago. Adjusted for inflation, mortgage payments are back to where they were in spring 1999. They are 40.3 percent below the spring 1989 peak of the prior real estate cycle. They are 51.8 percent below the current cycle's peak in June 2006.