The news continues to be bad for the San Benito County housing
market.
The news continues to be bad for the San Benito County housing market.
Sales closed on 17 homes in October, a slight improvement over the 16 closed sales in September but less than half the 40 closed sales in October 2006 and less than one-fourth the 70 sales in October 2005, according to the listing service MLS Listings, Inc.
Asked about the statistics, real estate agent Dee Brown of ReMax Valley Properties said, “I think they’re incredibly horrible.”
The average sales price has dropped from $695,586 to $563,828 since October 2005, but Brown said most buyers don’t seem interested yet.
“People are so nervous,” she said. “They’re waiting for things to hit bottom.”
Many of the market’s difficulties have been caused, Brown said, by the large number of mortgage foreclosures and “short sales” – when a home is sold at less than the value of the loan.
According to the real estate data firm RealtyTrac, San Benito County saw 193 foreclosure filings between July and September 2007, compared with 22 in the same period of 2005.
Brown noted that when a home is sold for less than it’s worth, it drags down the prices of other homes in the area. In one Hollister neighborhood, she recalled seeing a home available for $399,000 – nearly $200,000 less than surrounding prices.
“If it sells for that, other houses will lose value,” she said.
Peter Fleming, an agent with Intero Real Estate, agreed that this isn’t a good market for homeowners looking to sell.
“If you don’t have to sell, now is not the right time to sell,” Fleming said.
But locals willing to offer the right price can still make a sale, he added.
The local inventory’s size continues to grow – there were 266 homes on the market in October 2005, while there are 494 now. That’s bad news for people trying to sell their homes, but Brown said it also means buyers “have plenty of options.”
People approaching the housing market as if it’s the stock market and waiting for prices to continue dropping have the wrong idea, she said.
“(A home) is something you live in,” Brown said. “It’s not just an investment.”
The lagging housing market is hurting the whole economy, as many are left with less discretionary income, she said. Total home sales were worth only around $9 million in October 2007, less than one-fifth the total two years ago.
