Home sales declined sharply in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in August, DataQuick Information System reported Sept. 21.
Sales fell to 2,126 homes in Santa Clara County, a 25 percent drop from August 2005. In San Mateo County, the decline was 18 percent to 792 homes.
Home prices were flat in Santa Clara County: The median price of $658,000 was a fraction of a percent higher than in August 2005, DataQuick reported.
San Mateo County had the steepest price drop — 7 percent — in the nine-county Bay Area, the company said. The county’s median price was $721,000.
First-half numbers
The August numbers continue a trend seen in the first half of the year, in the January-June period.In Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, and Woodside, sales in the January-June period dropped 13 percent from the same period in 2005, according to the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors, based on information derived from REInfoLink.
Sales in the first half of 2005 totaled 1,213 homes, while this year 1,053 homes were sold.
Only in Palo Alto did sales increase, from 267 homes in the first half of 2005 to 280 homes in 2006.
Median prices, meanwhile, in the January-June period have increased in Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Woodside. They decreased in Los Altos and Portola Valley and stayed the same in Menlo Park.
Several things are going on in the Bay Area home market, DataQuick President Marshall Prentice said.
“Many homes are being offered for sale at unrealistically high prices as sellers try to game the peak of the market,” he said. “Buyers appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach as sellers get real with their asking prices.
“The market seems to be going into a lull, until this all shakes out. It does appear that the strong appreciation of the recent past is leveling off.”
Bay Area sales in August were the weakest for that month since 1997, when 9,080 homes were sold, he said.
DataQuick found that 9,128 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine-county region last month, up 15 percent from July but down 25 percent from August last year.
DataQuick spokesman John Karevoll said that indicators of market distress are still largely absent. The use of adjustable-rate mortgages has decreased in the past six months and while foreclosure rates are up from last year’s low point, they are still below normal levels, he said.
The Palo Alto Weekly and Bay City News Service contributed to this report.
