Firm: Calif. home sales drop 22 percent in July Firm: California home sales drop 22 percent as tax credit expires Jacob Adelman, Associated Press Writer, On Thursday August 19, 2010, 4:09 pm LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Home sales in California plummeted 21.9 percent last month for the largest year-over-year drop in more than two years, a tracking firm reported Thursday.
San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said the drop from 45,079 homes in July 2009 to 35,202 homes last month came as the market adjusted to the end of federal tax credits for first-time buyers.
DataQuick said last month was the slowest July since 2007, when 35,185 homes were sold. July's year-over-year decline also was the steepest drop since March 2008, when the newly frozen credit market prompted a sales decline of 38.3 percent.
"There was more to last month's sales drop than expiring federal home buyer tax credits, but we think they were the main reason the decline was so sharp," DataQuick president John Walsh said. "As the boost from the credits waned, low mortgage rates just weren't enough to outweigh the weak economic recovery and low consumer confidence."
The median home price in the state declined 0.7 percent to $268,000 last month from $270,000 in June, although the median price last month was up 7.2 percent from $250,000 in July 2009.
Walsh said further price deterioration could be coming, as potential buyers wait to see whether the drop in sales translates into greater discounts.
Buyers "will take their time to assess market conditions, searching for signs of renewed price cuts," he said. "Depending on the economy and other factors, that might be what some of them find."
Foreclosures comprised some 35.6 percent of resales last month, up from 34.1 percent in June but down from 43.5 percent a year ago.
Poster comment: Awe, what's a matter California? All those illegals you shipped in don't have the coinage to buy homes? Too bad.
You made your fucking illegal-alien bed so lie in it, ya fuck-heads.
