The county recorded 3,559 sales last month, the highest home-sale tally for an April since 2006, when 3,974 homes were sold. April’s count is almost 10 percent higher than March’s and 8.6 percent higher than April 2011.
March-to-April sales gains in San Diego County are not uncommon, but the growth this year has bested sales gains in 2011 and 2010.
Prices also rose locally. The median amount paid for a home in San Diego was $329,500, up 2.8 percent from March and up 2.4 percent from a year ago.
Values were mixed among the housing types. The median price for a single-family home, which makes up the bulk of the market, was $355,000 in April, up 1.4 percent but down 1.1. percent from April of last year.
Sales numbers for all of Southern California were not as strong. They were down 3.4 percent from March but were up 5.1 percent from a year ago, lifted by sales in coastal counties including San Diego.
Investor and cash-buyer activity continues to be “unusually robust,” John Walsh, president of San Diego-based DataQuick, said in a statement. That’s been the case for San Diego County.
Walsh also weighed in other factors that have contributed to what he calls an “abnormal market.”
“The jumbo-loan market has yet to recover, and the use of plain-vanilla adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, remains far below normal,” he said. “Lots of homeowners are ‘underwater,’ and the market remains awash in uncertainty over the economy, home prices, and the way lenders will handle the many thousands of homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments.”
Written by
Lily Leung
