by Calculated Risk on 11/15/2006 05:10:00 PM

DataQuick reports: Bay Area home sales slow, prices flat

Bay Area home sales held steady at a five-year low in October ... Prices remained flat.

The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $614,000 last month, up 0.5 percent from September's $611,000, and unchanged from October last year. The median hovered around $630,000 last spring and early summer, and spiked to $644,000 in June before coming down.

Bay Area California Median Home Prices
Area	Oct '04	Oct '05	Oct '06	Pct Change
Alameda	$497K	$571K	$578K	1.2%
Contra Costa	$468K	$575K	$544K	-5.4%
Marin	$688K	$817K	$844K	3.3%
Napa	$527K	$608K	$555K	-8.7%
San Francisco	$666K	$778K	$771K	-0.9%
San Mateo	$656K	$759K	$745K	-1.8%
Santa Clara	$552K	$639K	$658K	3.0%
Solano	$413K	$476K	$462K	-2.9%
Sonoma	$477K	$564K	$531K	-5.9%
Bay Area	$524K	$614K	$614K	0.0%

I added the October 2004 median prices to give a two year perspective on prices.

A total of 7,979 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine-county region in October. That was up 0.9 percent from 7,907 for the month before, and down 24.1 percent from 10,508 for October last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Last month's sales count was the lowest for any October since 2001 when 7,867 homes were sold. An average October has 8,445 sales in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The range is from 5,767 in 1994 to 11,728 in 2003.

Bay Area California Homes Sold
Area	Oct '04	Oct '05	Oct '06	Pct Change
Alameda	2,458	2,187	1,586	-27.5%
Contra Costa	2,252	2,104	1,658	-21.2%
Marin	404	395	286	-27.6%
Napa	206	187	140	-25.1%
San Francisco	650	605	523	-13.6%
San Mateo	840	754	653	-13.4%
Santa Clara	2,595	2,557	1,971	-22.9%
Solano	978	936	605	-35.4%
Sonoma	797	783	557	-28.9%
Bay Area	11,180	10,508	7,979	-24.1%