For-sale inventory halved in California

The for-sale inventory of homes has dropped by more than half from May 2008 to May 2009, according to the latest California Association of Realtors report on May home sales and prices.

The association's Unsold Inventory Index for May, which measures how long it would take to sell all for-sale single-family resale homes given that month's sales pace, suggested that the market had reversed from a buyer's market in May 2008 to a seller's market in May 2009.

The index was 4.2 months in May, compared with 8.7 months in May. A for-sale inventory of six months is considered to roughly represent a supply-demand equilibrium. In contrast, the National Association of Realtors reported a 9.6-month supply of for-sale U.S. resale homes in May.

The CAR report noted that the median price of existing single-family homes in California declined by 30.4 percent year-over-year in May, while sales rose 35.2 percent.

The group reported an increase in the median price of single-family resale homes by 4.2 percent from April 2009 to May 2009, with sales of resale homes up 2.9 percent.

Regionally, the Poway, Calif., market had the largest gain (29.7 percent) in median price for new and resale single-family homes and condos year-over-year in May among all cities, counties and communities tracked, followed by Auburn (8.3 percent), Arcadia (7.5 percent), and Atascadero (6.3 percent.)

California City witnessed the largest decline (-57.4 percent) in median price year-over-year in May, followed by Bloomington (-57.3 percent) and Lancaster (-52.4 percent).

A separate set of regional data for single-family resale homes found that sales surged 96.2 percent year-over-year in May in the High Desert region, followed by the Monterey County region (94.4 percent), and the San Diego (89.1 percent) region.

The Santa Barbara South Coast region experienced a 25 percent year-over-year drop in single-family resale home sales in May, followed by the Santa Barbara County region (-9.9 percent) and Northern California (1.4 percent). ...CONTINUED

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