Hollister
– As the year’s prime homebuying season comes to an end, the San
Benito County housing market continues to drag.
Hollister – As the year’s prime homebuying season comes to an end, the San Benito County housing market continues to drag.
“I’m puzzled,” said Dee Brown, a real estate agent with ReMax Platinum Properties. “There are a lot of really good bargains out there. … There are people who have to move who are lowering their prices.”
Local home purchases fell from 34 closed sales in May to 23 in June, according to data from tracking firm REInfoLink. That’s a drop of more than 60 percent from the 62 homes sold in June 2006.
Rick Pennington of Pennington Town and Country Realty said the housing market first started slowing in summer 2005. Downturns normally last for 18 months, Pennington said, but the current slump has been worsened by the increase in mortgage defaults and foreclosures.
“That sort of created a double dip,” he said.
Mortgage problems aren’t isolated to San Benito County, said Pennington, president of the San Benito County Association of Realtors. Towns in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley “from Fresno to Red Bluff” are doing much worse.
Many of those communities are also “overbuilt,” Pennington said, with too many new homes just sitting on the market. Hollister has been saved from similar trouble by the building moratorium in place since 2002.
“That’s the silver lining (of the moratorium),” Pennington said.
Despite the drop in purchases, the median sale price remains relatively stable at $635,000 in June 2007. That’s up from $627,500 in May and also an increase from $623,950 in June 2006.
Brown speculated that more expensive homes may be doing better because of tightened mortgage requirements in the wake of the foreclosure crunch. Those rules might have discouraged first-time, lower-end homebuyers, she said.
“There’s not that much activity at the lower end,” Brown said.
The best time for sellers is normally between mid-March and mid-June, Pennington said. July is one of the slowest months for the market. Then things pick up again from mid-August until late October.
The housing market won’t see dramatic improvements anytime soon, Pennington said. But “old-timers” are looking forward to better things. Like many real estate agents, Pennington pointed to improving job and housing markets in the San Jose area, which often benefits the San Benito County economy. Increased home prices locally, though, may reduce the trickle-down effect, he said.
“It has to be a big (price) difference if somebody’s going to drive 50 miles,” Pennington said.
There are other indications the market will start improving, he said. Not only are the city’s wastewater treatment plant and the Highway 25 bypass slated for completion in 2008, but so are major commercial developments such as a Lowe’s Home Improvement Center. Large corporations wouldn’t build in Hollister if they didn’t anticipate a boom, Pennington said.
“These guys always do market surveys,” he said.
