The bad news always seems to be first, when the media talks about the housing market. While bad news may sell more, a lot depends on how you are looking at it--half full or half empty.
The statistics for April emerged yesterday. While the job layoffs and economy is definitely slowing the housing market return, some areas of San Diego are still sputtering along showing signs of revival. From January until April home prices have slowly climbed in the East County.
While year over year home values have shown a 26.5% decline from April 2008 to April 2009; although, since January the medium home prices in the East County have actually increased 4% from $240,000 in January 2009 to $250,000 in April 2009. Other signs of recover include the number of home sales increased 51% year over year from 323 in April 2008 to 488 in April 2009.
Like several areas of San Diego, Santee home prices have also risen since January the medium home prices have risen from $270,000 to $285,000 in April, over 5% increase. However, again looking at it year over year, from April 2008 to April 2009, it has declined 20.2%. The number of homes in Santee remained steady, from 58 in April 2008 to 59 in April 2009.
As I mentioned in What Happened to All the Houses on the MLS?, with the declining inventory we should continue to see the housing prices slowly recover. If you have been waiting for the bottom to hit, we may have already seen it. So with the interest rates low and all of the buyer incentives mentioned in Uncle Sam Giving Money Away to First-Time Homebuyers and Buy Today with Recession Proof Plans now is the opportune time to buy.
--Virginia Hall
As I mentioned in What Happened to All the Houses on the MLS?, with the declining inventory we should continue to see the housing prices slowly recover. If you have been waiting for the bottom to hit, we may have already seen it. So with the interest rates low and all of the buyer incentives mentioned in Uncle Sam Giving Money Away to First-Time Homebuyers and Buy Today with Recession Proof Plans now is the opportune time to buy.
--Virginia Hall
