3:15pm | A report issued by DataQuick Tuesday for Southern California indicated the region’s housing market is “taking baby steps” toward improvement. The report states that in April the area’s housing market leveled off “as sales activity migrated ever-so-slightly from inland bargain areas toward entry- and mid-market neighborhoods closer to the coast.”

The median home price in Southern California was unchanged from March, “but it jumped compared with April 2009’s low point,” the real estate information service reported.

Sales of new and resale homes reached 20,299 units in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, down slightly less than 1% from March, and down 1% from April 2009, according to MDA DataQuick. April’s sales volume changes from a year ago ranged from a drop of 12.3% in San Bernardino County to an 11.6% increase in Orange County.
 
“The market’s still taking baby steps on a long road to recovery, trying to find its footing,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in a statement. “It’s unclear which of today’s sales characteristics are part of a new reality, and which are still temporary turbulence. The mortgage market, especially for larger home loans, is definitely dysfunctional. Obviously things would be different if the job picture were brighter.”

The median price paid for a Southland home remained unchanged from March’s $285,000, but it was up 15.4% from $247,000 for April 2009. Last year was the low point of the current cycle, whereas the median peaked at $505,000 in mid 2007, according to DataQuick.

April’s year-over-year gain in the median sale price was partly a reflection of more sales occurring in costlier coastal markets, and fewer in the lower-cost inland areas, the report shows. Last month nearly one-fifth of all sales were for $500,000 or more, and that’s marked increase from 14.8% a year ago.

A potentially interesting report will be issued on Thursday by RealtyTrac. The report focuses on a recent survey conducted on consumer sentiment around foreclosures in the U.S. Those surveyed were asked:

  • What they would do if they couldn’t pay their mortgage
  • At what point of their home being underwater would they walk away
  • How much of a discount do they expect to get when buying a foreclosure
  • How much they would be willing to invest in renovations on a foreclosed property
  • What do they consider to be the negative aspects of buying a foreclosed property

The authors of the report will also discuss their predictions for the summer buying season and what we can expect in the second half of 2010 now that the housing tax credit has expired. Consider that in IOU on the report, so stay tuned to Realty Bites for coverage of that report on Thursday.

Speaking of IOU… and V
A Los Angeles Times story on Tuesday reports some more good news for the economy and housing. “Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco are predicting a rapid economic rebound,” the story states. The researchers cite growth in consumer and business spending, and say recovery “is likely to be faster than from the two previous recessions” according to the report.

The report pits the letter “U” versus “V.” That’s seemingly a small difference, but for the unemployed masses, owners of small businesses, and all of those suffering at the bottom of one of those given letters, that difference could mean months of additional suffering, or possibly far less time.

“By many measures, the most recent recession has been the worst in the United States since the Great Depression,” the report states. “Will the recovery now under way be rapid, as it was following most postwar recessions through the mid-1980s? Or will growth be more modest, as it was following the two most recent recessions? This question is often rephrased in terms of the shape of the recovery. That is, will economic activity turn up sharply, tracing out the upward sweep of the letter V? Or will it be more gradual, like the lower part of the letter U?”

Several neat, but hard-to-figure, number graphs, and a whole lotta economic lingo, later, the authors leave us with the following, somewhat upbeat, conclusion.

“In the past, large output gaps, rapid growth of potential output, and real interest rates well below the natural interest rate have contributed to rapid V-shaped recoveries,” the report states. “These factors were much more muted in the recessions of 1990–91 and 2001, leading to U-shaped recoveries. Now they point to a moderate pace for the current recovery, somewhere between the U and V shapes of the past.”

Those of you among the disappointed who were hoping for a definitive “glass half full/empty” answer, let me offer this: Whatever letter in whatever alphabet one can find between a “V” and a “U”—in terms of alphabetical order or letter shape, I can think of nothing in between—at least it’s better than the letter “O.” Weak, I know, but it’s all I got.

Long Beach median prices for March:

Long Beach
90802    $228    -3.4%
90803    $785    26.9%
90804    $245    4.3%
90805    $232    16.0%
90806    $330    16.0%
90807    $474    26.3%
90808    $465    1.1%
90810    $250    4.2%
90813    $160    -4.5%
90814    $515    -16.3%
90815    $509    -0.2%

*Prices in thousands
** Percentage represents year-over-year change
***April figures due out soon