Jumbo Market is Big Wait

I want to apologize for being little late on the post today. I have been traveling for work and was glad to get back home to Alameda. Now on to today's topic. . .

I have been reporting that Alameda home sales been tracking towards a decline Year-Over-Year, but given the governments effort to spur sales through keeping interest rates down and tax credits I wanted to see if they have had any effect on sales. The net result is we also get to see how homes in the Jumbo market are performing and the news is not encouraging for those who are selling at the high end of the market.

For the sales period of January 1 through June 15, Alameda sales are down 16-percent and we have about six months of inventory based on the sales for the first half of the month. When you break down the inventory into conforming loans ($0-$417,000), Jumbo Loans ($417,001-$650,000), and Super Jumbo (650,001 and higher) you get a sense of the inventory that is selling.

Homes that fall into the conforming loan market are up 9-percent over last year, but as you go up in loan type , sales have dropped dramtically. Homes that fall into the Jumbo market are down 6-percent and the Super Jumbo are of 42-percent. (see chart)

. Data is for January 1 to May 31 . Inventory as of June 22, 2009 . Alameda . 2009 2008 Chg Inventory Months of Inventory . total sales for the period 152 181 -16% 139 5.94 . conforming 33 29 14% 31 6.11 . non conf 118 108 9% 108 5.95 . 417K-650K 76 81 -6% 43 3.68 . Greater than 650K 42 72 -42% 65 10.06 . Greater than $1 Million 3 7 -57% 16 34.67 . The thing I learned from the data is home over $650,000 are just having a tough time selling. If you have one of those rare properties that fall into the conforming loan area sales are moving. Today Alameda Inventory

. . 6/22/2009 . Total 168 . 94501 133 . 94502 35 . SFR 98 . Condo 41 . Multi-Family 27 . Short Sale 11 . Foreclosure 10 . Price Reductions 57 . High List $2345000 . Low List $215000 .