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Median Home Price Declines in Pasadena
Sales of single family homes in Pasadena, California continue to fall behind last year, but for the first time the median sales price declined to $725,000 in November down 4% from last years median price of $754,950. As stated before, we do see median price fluctuations in real estate from month to month, but we haven’t seen median price declines in a year on year basis. Apparently this is the first in quite some time.
Sales of Townhomes and Condominiums also fell behind last November in terms of the units that were sold. There were 29 units sold compared to 45 last year, a decrease of 35%. Despite the greater decrease in unit sales (compared to single family), the median price of a townhome or condo actually increased to $550,000 up from $494,000
The market for townhomes and condominiums appears to be more resilient as properties are showing fewer days on market and selling slightly closer to their asking prices. Home Sales for the month of November are now posted.
Tags: Pasadena home sales, Pasadena home values, pasadena housing market, Pasadena real estate
December 31st, 2007 at 3:57 am
I’ve been living in Pasadena for almost 5 years and got here just after the housing market started taking off. As me and my wife were just getting settled into our jobs, we decided to wait to buy.
While we could afford to buy an above median priced home here and would like to eventually, we’ll continue to rent. Why? Because home prices are way overpriced. Looking at any metric, current prices are unsustainable. I live in 91107 and median home prices are @$700k and the median household income is $70k or 1/10th of that.
Historically, prices have been about 5X household income which tells you that prices have a large amount to fall. Even more, I know a few people who work/worked in the mortgage industry and they were handing out loans over the last year to anyone who wanted one. While this is not atypical of what’s happened in California, the so called “subprime” problem is going to become an “option arm” problem by mid next year and prices are going to fall rapidly by summer.
What makes Pasadena even more at risk is the number of jobs that are tied to mortgage and real estate. As IndyMac’s business model was essentially selling stated income “liar loans” I expect that they will be out of business by this time next year.
Job losses here, coupled with price drops across the rest of CA make buying here now especially risky.
Besides, I rent an 1100 square ft apartment with a pool and very nice landscaping for $1300 a month. When a similarly sized with comparable house would cost me $5000 or more a month plus the cost of upkeep, I’m just enjoying pocketing the difference and taking great vacations.
While I plan to stay in Pasadena for some time, buying a house now just doesn’t make any finanical sense.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:45 am
Bill,
I would tend to agree with you. Now that the “mortgage’s for everyone” mentality does not exist, we see softening in many area’s that were very active due to the easy qualification process and lax lending standards. Since those programs do not exist, home prices will come down until they reach more affordable levels.