Strong demand in January pushes Bay Area home prices up

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22590186/strong-demand-january-pushes-bay-area-home-sales

Heavy bidding for Bay Area single family homes kept January prices well above their levels of a year ago, a report Thursday showed, stirring hopes that the recovery is well under way.

The median price for a single family home in the nine-county Bay Area was $435,000, up 24.3 percent from the previous January, according to DataQuick, a real estate information company.

The biggest gainer was Alameda County, where the median price of $420,000 was 29.2 percent higher than a year earlier.

Santa Clara County was up 29.1 percent from a year ago with a median sales price of $605,000; San Mateo gained 21.3 percent to a median price of $640,000 and Contra Costa County increased 20.2 percent to a median price of $294,500.

Sales dropped in Santa Clara County from a year earlier, while they rose modestly in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, DataQuick reported.

The housing market usually slows in January, but buyers were still plentiful while sellers remained on the sidelines. That resulted in multiple offers for many homes, with investors paying cash often making the winning bids.

"We are in dire need of more homes to sell," said Cameron Platt of Harcourts Platt Real Estate in Oakland. "First-time buyers can get very discouraged."

Even million dollar homes are drawing multiple offers, some of them all cash.

A house in West San Jose on the market for just over $1 million drew 14 offers and sold for $72,000 over the asking price. One lower priced condo in Concord drew 28 offers, selling for $80,000 over list price.

"There are definitely more buyers than properties," said Michele Manzone, president of the West Contra Costa Association of Realtors. "More are coming on the market every day, but there's still not enough inventory for the amount of buyers out there."

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