SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) – The real estate tracking firm DataQuick said Thursday that the median price for homes in the nine-county San Francisco Bay area reached $555,000 in June, an increase of 6.9 percent over the previous month.

The real estate data firm is reporting the median year-over-year price paid for a Bay Area home rose at its fastest pace on record in June.

DataQuick said Thursday that the rise was the result of disappearing distress sales, an improving economy and mortgage rates remaining low.

However, the number of homes sold dropped 7.5 percent to 7,897 in June. DataQuick attributes the decrease to the number of homes for sale falling short of demand and an easing of purchases by cash and investor buyers.

The real estate information service says last month’s sales were 20.9 percent below the June average of 9,993 sales.

• See the full DataQuick report and County-by-County sales breakdown

Home prices in the Bay Area are through the roof according to a new study by Data Quick.

Back in 2009, during the depths of the recession, the median price of a home was $290,000. Now that figure is $555,000; six percent higher than last month and 33 percent higher than one year ago.

Data Quick Analyst Andrew LePage said it’s a matter of supply and demand. We’ve seen sales fall on a year-over-year basis for the last five months in a row.

Richard Green with the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California said much of it is the shortage of homes for sale.

“Inventories are very small,” he said adding that there are many more all cash transactions than ever, which drives up the market for higher-end homes and drives up sale prices.

Speculators have said that things could ease with fewer homes underwater, prompting sales and increasing supply. In addition, developers are also starting to build new homes again.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/07/18/median-bay-area-home-price-jumps-again-as-inventory-remains-tight/

Articles all over the web report that real estate professionals are gearing up, potential buyers are trying to buy now before the IPO and sellers are trying to determine their best course of strategy.  From the local Mercury News :

Realtors say the buzz around Facebook is already sparking the long moribund housing market. Potential sellers want to know whether they should sell now or wait, and buyers are fervently pushing their agents to get into the Peninsula housing market before the IPO, anticipating rising prices as the newly wealthy compete for the hottest neighborhoods from San Francisco to Palo Alto.

The New York Times writes that if you thought housing was expensive in the Valley now, just wait for the Facebook update:

..10 homes in Palo Alto sold for more than their asking prices last month, some by large amounts. Now, with the long-expected Facebook public offering a step closer to reality, Mr. DeLeon said he expected to see several things happen: some sellers may keep their homes off the market until they judge the time is right, some speculators may snap up old houses to tear down and rebuild, and some buyers may feel pressure to make offers before the deluge hits.

While the Valley is bubbling with nervous excitement, the Wall Street Journal notes that the benefits of the Facebook IPO may only reach so far.  New potential Facebook millionaires still want a short commute to work.

In communities in the shadow of tech giants like Facebook Inc. in Menlo Park, housing prices are on a tear. Menlo Park led the Bay Area with a 52.7% increase in its median home sales price in the fourth quarter, with prices rising to $1.29 million from $840,000 a year earlier, according to DataQuick. Palo Alto’s median home-sales price jumped 12.5% to $1.1 million from $977,750, according to DataQuick.

Cities outside of Silicon Valley didn’t fare as well. Sonoma, for example, experienced a 24.1% drop in the fourth quarter in its median home-sales price to $356,000 from $469,000 a year ago, while Walnut Creek prices fell 18.3% to $580,000 from $709,500, according to DataQuick.

 Since we live in the Bay Area, we should know what’s happening out there.  Readers – what have you seen?  Are you looking to buy or sell in the Valley?  Does the Facebook IPO affect how you’re planning to buy or sell?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/02/13/facebook-ipo-is-sizzling-up-silicon-valey-real-estate/

Foreclosure activity decreased in April for the seventh straight month, bringing total foreclosure activity to a 40-month low, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. This is not to say that default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions aren’t running well above the norms, with one in every 593 US households receiving a foreclosure filing in April. The numbers are actually quite deceptive.

“This slowdown continues to be largely the result of massive delays in processing foreclosures, rather than the result of a housing recovery that is lifting people out of foreclosure,” notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio in a statement.

There are currently 3.7 million loans that are 90 days or more delinquent, according to RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga. Nationwide, completed foreclosures (REOs) took an average of 400 days from initial default notice to REO in the first quarter of this year. That’s up from 340 days a year ago and more than double the 151 days in 2007. At the current rate, it would take three to four years to move those loans through the foreclosure process. In some states, the picture is far worse.

In New York and New Jersey, it takes more than 900 days to get through the foreclosure process from start to finish, in Florida 619 days, and in California 330 days, according to RealtyTrac.

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Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42994346?__source=RSS*blog*&par=RSS