Chandler real estate market

The Chandler real estate market, one of the areas included in the greater Phoenix Valley region, showed signs of recovery after a period of economic devastation. According to a May 22, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “April figures for existing-home sales in metro Phoenix reveal several promising shifts for those searching for signs of a housing-market recovery. The overall number of home sales in the region continued to hover near record levels last month.” The piece, written by Catherine Reagor, continued to state that “Beneath the sales figures were other encouraging numbers: Foreclosures did not dominate sales of existing homes in the Valley for the first time in more than a year. The number of investors purchasing homes from lenders dropped. More buyers purchased homes with the intent of living in them.”

The average purchase price of a Chandler home for sale also rose in the most recent tracking period, according to a May 27, 2010 report from Arizona State University. This piece found that “For the first time in three years, Phoenix-area housing prices are showing an overall year-over-year increase for the market. A new report from the W.P. Carey School of Business contains positive news for Valley homeowners, who have been waiting for relief from dropping home values.” Professor Karl Guntermann, the author of the report, stated that “This report reflects an important milestone in the recent housing cycle, with preliminary April data showing the first year-over-year increase in house prices marketwide. Also, prices for lower-end houses and the foreclosure segment of the market, which turned positive in March, continued to increase on an annual basis.”

The commercial sector of the Chandler and Phoenix real estate markets may have not yet seen the worst of the economic crisis. According to a May 30, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “Arizona’s housing market is deep into the process of flushing out its bad mortgage debt. But lenders and borrowers of troubled commercial real-estate loans continue to live a lie. Commercial real-estate brokers have coined a phrase, ‘extend and pretend,’ to describe lenders’ sluggish response to the billions of dollars in bad commercial mortgages on their books.”

Hillsborough real estate

The Hillsborough real estate market, one of the upscale residential portions of the larger San Francisco and Bay Area housing markets, has been showing mixed signals in the first half of 2010. According to a May 26, 2010 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, “The San Francisco area had the strongest quarterly performance among metropolitan regions in a closely watched home price index released Tuesday, although other areas and national numbers showed some weakening.” The piece, written by Carolyn Said, went on to note that “The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed the San Francisco area –which it defines as the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa – up 16.2 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same quarter in 2009. Other California areas also showed recovery, with San Diego up 10.8 percent and Los Angeles up 6 percent.”

The number of Hillsborough homes for sale that were actually purchased hit a near-record low in the month of April, however. According to a May 20, 2010 blog from the Press-Democrat, “Bay Area home sales in April reached their second-lowest level in the past 15 years, according to a report released Thursday. Last month, 7,003 homes were sold in the Bay Area, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. That was down slightly from March and from April 2009, but nearly 25 percent lower than the historic average of 9,278 sales for April.” The post from Real Sonoma went on to say that “The Bay Area median price for both new and resold houses and condominiums was $370,000, compared to $380,000 in March and $304,000 in April 2009. The median price has risen for seven straight months on a year-over-year basis.”

These two contradictory signals for the Hillsborough real estate market were also reported by a May 20, 2010 article from the Contra Costa Times. This piece by Eve Mitchell went on to note that “Bay Area home sales in April were down slightly from a year ago while the median sales price rose sharply. The sales slowdown was tied to some buyers delaying escrow until May 1 to get a bigger home-buying tax break.”

Folsom Real Estate

Folsom, California, most famously known for its prison as sung about by country legend Johnny Cash, is an upper class neighborhood, with a median household income in 2007 estimated to be around $87,500. The Folsom real estate market, like nearly every market in the vicinity, has suffered in the past few years as it has struggled to deal with the aftershocks of the U.S. economic recession and housing market crash.

The Folsom market is still showing signs of a struggle as prices continue to slip and attempt to maintain a stable range. According to statistics compiled and maintained regularly by the Sacramento Association of Realtors, there were 40 homes sold in Folsom in the month of February this year, a decrease from 50 sales in January, and also a slight decrease from 45 sales in February of last year. Of the 40 sales, 10 were bank-owned homes, 12 were short sales and 19 were conventional sales.

The monthly inventory of Folsom homes for sale stood at 91 in February, an improvement on last year’s figure of 96 but a slip from January’s 73 homes on the market. This put the total inventory in February at 218 homes, up slightly from January’s 204 but an improvement upon figures from February 2009, when there were 245 homes on the market.

In February, the median price of a home sold in Folsom was $314,500, a sign that prices are still not stabilized in the community, as this was a drop of more than $10,000 from January’s median of $325,625 and a fall of nearly $100,000 from a year ago, when the median price was $410,000. The monthly median listing price, however, was up compared with January, to $394,900 from $380,000, though both figures are lower than a year ago’s figure, which was $427,500.

Cape Cod Real Estate

Cape Cod
A notoriously high-priced and exclusive market, the Cape Cod, Massachusetts, real estate area has nonetheless found itself it down as of late. Brought about by the U.S. financial crisis, which has spread around the world, Cape Cod’s markets have suffered too, seeing home values decline, inventory rise and foreclosures up.

The year 2009 seems to be a turning point year though, as the Cape Cod real estate market tries to drag itself out of the mud. During the greater part of 2009, Cape Cod showed a marked increase in sales volume, though prices were still far off their highs.

According to a local Kinlin Grover Real Estate report, during the greater part of 2009, the average price of a home sold in Cape Cod was $381,700, down quite a bit from 2008’s average of $465,900. Homes were also spending more time on the market — an average of 184 days, up from 157 in the previous year — though the number of listings was down. Real estate in Cape Cod varies greatly, with average sale prices ranging from $1.67 million in Hyannis Port down to $179,700 in Hyannis.

The high-end market of homes for sale in Cape Cod has not been immune to any of this activity. The average price of a high-end home in 2009 was $1.75 million, down from $1.83 million, and homes were spending extensively longer on the market: 316 days in 2009, up from 208 days in 2008. The number of homes listed for sale remained virtually unchanged from the previous year.

New Haven

The suburban area of New Haven, Connecticut, like many of its neighboring and nearby cities on the East Coast, has seen its share of ill effects from the U.S. financial crisis, which triggered a collapse in the U.S. residential real estate market. As a result, New Haven real estate has seen a decline in its value, a rise in troubled mortgage-holders and a buildup of inventory.

Despite tough market conditions, the market for real estate in New Haven does seem to be on the brink of turning the page into a brighter, if not at pre-crash levels, future. According to local realtor Donna Bigda, at the end of October 2009, there were 178 homes for sale in New Haven, ranging from just $29,900 all the way up to $1 million.

October’s real estate statistics show slow improvement in the market. The month saw 34 sales, an increase of 16 from October 2008’s figures, up by around 50%. Prices of homes on the market in New Haven remained mostly steady. In October of last year, the average sales price for a sold home was $174,050; this year in October, the figure rose slightly to $174,534.

However, homes are now spending more time on the market before selling as compared with last year. In October 2009, the homes sold did so after an average 108 days on the market. Last year’s average was just 68 days. It is estimated that the market had about a six-month supply in 2009’s third quarter.

Laguna Beach

The famed Laguna Beach neighborhood in Southern California’s Orange County, notorious for being home to some of the nation’s most pricey residential real estate, has seen its sales figures and home values drop in the midst of the nation’s worst housing crisis in decades.

Though many would think residents of upscale neighborhoods like Laguna Beach immune to the effects of a recession, like foreclosures, that thought is not quite right. According to the Orange County Register, in November, there were 77 homes in the Laguna Beach real estate market in default, with nearly half, 36, valued at more than $1 million.

Real estate in Laguna Beach is languishing on the market as well, looking for buyers with lots of cash or credit. As of Nov. 30, according to the Register, the average time on the market for homes for sale in Laguna Beach was 9.69 months, up from 8.27 months just two weeks ago.

The neighborhood, too, has seen its median sales price continue to decline. The median price of a home in Laguna Beach in a three week period ending Dec. 5 $1.02 million, down by 45% from last year. However, sales volume shows signs for encouragement during that period, as the area tallied 33 homes sold, an increase of 73.7% over the same period of last year, according to the OC Register.