Federal tax credit ends; median price in county climbs
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 23, 2010 AT 9 P.M., UPDATED JULY 24, 2010 AT 12:02 A.M
With the federal tax credit expiring, homes sales were down in June but prices continued to rise in San Diego, according to the California Association of Realtors.
In San Diego, the median price for June was $397,910, a 1.7 percent increase from the previous month and a 9.7 percent increase from the previous year. Home sales in the county dipped 4.1 percent from May but were up 1.1 percent from a year ago.
On the state level, the median home price for June stood at $311,950, a decline of 3.8 percent from the previous month but up 13.6 percent from the previous year. Home sales were down 11.1 percent from the previous month and down 4.2 percent from last June.
Steve Goddard, president of the California Realtors Association, acknowledged that the end of federal tax credits were having an effect on home sales, which could continue for the rest of the year.
“Although we expect sales to be lower in the second half of the year because of the absence of the government stimulus, they should remain above the long-run average and be significantly higher than the trough in 2007, when sales bottomed out,” he said.
According to the California Association of Realtors, San Diego hit its trough price of $326,830 in March 2009. While the median price in San Diego is now 21.7 percent higher than that low, it is still far off its peak of $622,380 in May 2006.
Jennifer Davies: (619) 293-1373; jennifer.davies@uniontrib.com
