Reports Give Mixed Messages on Bay Area Real Estate.
The Bay Area housing market perked up in March as usual, but the median price paid for a home posted its lowest year-over-year gain in four years.
The median price paid for new and existing homes and condos in the nine-county Bay Area was $643,250 in March, up 4.6 percent from February, according to CoreLogic. Prices typically rise between February and March, by 4.5 percent on average since 1988.
On a year-over-year basis, the median price rose for a 48th consecutive month in March, but only by 1.4 percent. That’s the smallest increase over that four-year period.
The median is the price at which half of homes that closed in March sold for more and half sold for less. The median can go up or down based on changes in the location and type of homes being sold. In March there was ‘a meaningful shift in sales’ to more affordable areas, CoreLogic research analyst Andrew LePage said. ‘That is going to tug down the median.’
Indeed, the only Bay Area counties where sales increased on a year-over-year basis were Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. ‘People are getting priced out in the coastal markets and heading further inland,’ LePage said.