California News Blog

Real estate experts hold optimistic views of the Berkeley real estate market’s future, as recent months have shown promising improvements with increases in both home sales and median prices.  Despite concerns over job security and another wave of home foreclosures, activity in the Berkeley real estate market has increased in the past few months as a result of the federal tax credit and affordability of housing due to the large inventory of “bargain” priced properties that were previously foreclosed on.  Although it is unsure whether the Bay Area real estate is out of the woods and working towards a full recovery, real estate experts are hopeful that the future will continue to bring improvements.

According to DQNews.com, the Bay Area in California has posted increases in both home sales and median sales prices to top levels seen during the previous year.  In November, the median price paid for new or resale houses and condos sold in the Bay Area was $387,000, a 10.6 percent increase from $350,000 in November of 2008.  November was the second month that the Bay Area has posted year-over-year gains in its median sales price, but the current median price level is still 41.8 percent below the $665,000 average posted during the peak reached in the summer of 2007.  The Bay Area also posted 6,878 new and resale house and condo sales during the month of November, which was a 19.5 percent increase from the 5,756 sales posted in November of 2008.  There was a slight dip in the sales and median price between October and November, but real estate experts aren’t concerned since the market was only following the usual market trends.

Nuwire Investor has also reported the recent improvements made in the Bay Area real estate market in terms of its median prices.  Nuwire Investor has noted that most real estate experts feel that the reduced number of foreclosures selling and greater activity in the more expensive housing markets have been the major factors in the recent increase in the median sales prices.  The year-over-year increases posted in October and November of 2009 were the first time the Bay Area has had year-over-year increases since November of 2007.