May 17, 2011 (Jeff Alan)

Distressed property sales made up 54 percent of California’s resale market in April 2011 according to DataQuick, while sales of new and resale homes and condos was down 3.3 percent compared to March, and 6.1 percent below sales in April, 2010.

An estimated 35,102 homes were sold in April compared to 36,417 in March. Home sales in April of last year numbered 37,481. According to statistics collected since 1988, the average number of homes sold in April is 44,359. The most homes sold in April were 71,638 in 2004 and the least amount sold in April were 27,625 in 1995.

The median price for a home in April remained unchanged from March at $249,000, and is down 2.4 percent from the median price of $255,000 in April of 2010. This was the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year price decreases.

Sales of foreclosures continued to drop while short sales increased slightly from the month before. The percentage of existing homes sales that had been foreclosed on in the past year dropped to 36.5 percent in April, down from 39.1 percent the month before and down from 38.1 percent a year earlier.

Short sales meanwhile, increased to an estimated 17.6 percent of resale’s last month, an increase from 17.2 in March and slightly lower than 17.7 percent from April 2010.

With falling prices and historically low mortgage interest rates, the typical monthly payment that buyers committed themselves to paying was $1050, which was the same as in March, but down from $1108 in April 2010. The typical mortgage payment is 61.7 percent below what the current cycle’s peak was in June 2006.

San Diego-based DataQuick monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts.

Tags: DataQuick, distressed properties, home sales, median home price, forclosures, short sales, falling prices, low mortgage rates, typical mortgage payment

Source:
DataQuick