The Saratoga real estate market, a portion of the larger San Jose and Santa Clara County housing markets, showed strong signs of improvement over the last several months. According to a June 6, 2010 article from Businessweek, “Of the 50 largest metros, San Jose saw the largest increase in home prices, 8.3 percent year-on-year during the first quarter, according to CoreLogic data. This was driven by a decrease in inventory – supply of single family homes in Santa Clara County dropped 19 percent year-on-year in May, according to a report by realtor CJ Brasiel.” The piece continued to caution that “The main hurdle for recovery in the area will be the high unemployment rate, 11.7 percent in April, according to BLS data.”

The number of Saratoga homes for sale which were actually purchased increased significantly in the month of April. According to a May 31, 2010 article from the Mercury News, “The local housing market continues to show improvement in sales and value of homes, though overall home sales in the nine-county Bay Area and the state as a whole, showed mixed results during the month of April, according to latest real estate sales and price reports. MDA DataQuick reports sales for all new and resale homes and condos in Santa Clara County rose 3.1 percent in April compared with the same period last year.” The piece, composed by Rose Meily, went on to note that “A total of 1,656 homes sold in April, up from 1,606 homes sold in April 2009. The median home price for all homes jumped 20.7 percent from $405,000 in April of 2009 to $489,000 this year. The jump in median price is attributed to increasing sales in the higher-end market in comparison to last year.”

The Saratoga real estate market also saw a shift towards more expensive properties in the month of May. According to a June 11, 2010 article in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, “Sales of million-dollar homes rose significantly in Santa Clara during May, helped in no small part by federal and state tax credits. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage reported 251 luxury homes sold last month, almost 70 percent more than the 148 sales that occurred in May 2009.’

The Seal Beach real estate market, one of the many constituent markets of the Orange County housing market, faced generally positive but mixed signals in the most recent tracking period. According to a May 11, 2010 article from OCLNN, “Fewer Orange County homeowners received notices of default in April, the first step in the foreclosure process, compared to the previous month and in April 2009, a positive sign in the housing market’s rebound.” The piece, written by Mike Reicher, continued to note that “According to Bay Area-based ForeclosureRadar.com’s monthly ‘California Foreclosure Report,’ 1,671 homes were given notices of default, compared to 2,059 in March and 3,031 in April 2009. At the same time, the number of foreclosed homes sold or repossessed continues to rise, indicating that banks may be working through their backlog. There were 583 homes either sold to a third party or repossessed by the bank in April…”

However, the average price of a Seal Beach real estate declined slightly in April compared to last month. According to a May 24, 2010 article from the Orange County Business Journal, “The median price of an existing Orange County home declined by $2,000 in April from March, with demand still strong for lower-priced distressed properties both here and across the state, the California Association of Realtors said on Monday.” The piece by Mark Mueller continued to say that “The median price for an existing stand-alone OC home sold in April was $491,120, a less than 1% decline from March, but a nearly 14% increase from a year ago. The number of sales here rose 15% from a year earlier but edged down 1.4% from March, the Realtor association said.”

However, these same statistics indicated that the average sales price in the Seal Beach housing market actually increased year-over-year. According to a May 24, 2010 article in the Orange County Register, “The latest version is out, and the group – HQ’d at Cal Poly Pomona – found Orange County values (from an average movement in values from reviews of 39 sample homes) up 1.4% on a year-over-year basis…That seems a confirmation of other rising price markers that home prices have – at least, temporarily – bottomed out.”

Capitola, located in Santa Cruz County in California, has, like so many regions in the Golden State, seen its real estate market take a wild ride since the sector crashed near the end of 2008, with foreclosures rising to all-time highs, prices plummeting and many homeowners finding themselves owing more on their homes than they are now estimated to be worth.

At the end of 2009, according to statistics compiled by the Santa Cruz Association of Realtors, there were five sales in Capitola, up from four sales in November and just two sales a year ago. Because the Capitola real estate is a rather small market, statistics must be closely examined, as they can wildly fluctuate month to month with the sale of one or two low- or high-priced outliers.

At the end of 2009, there were 15 Capitola homes for sale still on the market, down by nearly half from the end of 2008, when it stood at 28 homes. In December, there were two new listings brought to market in Capitola, down from five a year ago. At the end of 2009, homes were spending an average of 176 days on the market before selling, the third-highest average in Santa Cruz. This figure represents a rise from December 2008, when the average days on the market was just 57 days.

One shining spot in the Capitola market is an increase in general in sales prices, which is in contrast to most other area markets. In December 2009, the median sales price for a home in Capitola was $727,000, up from just $617,500 one year ago and from $637,000 in November 2009. Average prices show similar trends. In December 2009, the average price was $812,400, up from $617,500 from the same month of 2008. The median sales price for Capitola condos in December was $309,500. In December 2008, it was $337,000, though that figure was based on just a single sale, whereas December 2009’s figure was based on four sales.

El Dorado Hills is a neighborhood found in the outskirts of the San Francisco metropolitan area. The El Dorado Hills real estate market centers around the trends of the larger Bay Area’s indicators. Foreclosures have started to decline in the rest of the greater San Francisco area, a possibly positive indication for the El Dorado Hills market in particular. According to a February 16, 2010 article published by MSN Money, “Notices of default declined in the four-county region last month, but the number of banks who received the keys to homes increased compared to a year ago, according to a report released Tuesday. And foreclosure activity statewide increased last month from January 2009, according to ForeclosureRadar.” Looking specifically at the El Dorado area, the article found that “The county had 180 notices of default, while back to the bank properties almost doubled to 94 from a year ago.”

Some trouble signs for Sacramento homes for sale were noted by an article in the Sacramento Business Journal. According to the piece, written by Michael Shaw, “The Sacramento region’s median home price inched up 3 percent in January, compared to a year ago, much lower than the 15 percent increase statewide, according to a California Association of Realtors report Tuesday.” The piece, written on February 23, 2010, also noted that “The association estimated that the four-county Sacramento region’s median price was $174,830 in January, though that figure varies widely within the counties that make up the metro area, reaching as high as $310,000 in El Dorado County.  The statewide median price is $287,400. The overall number of sales for the month in the Sacramento region was down 24.9 percent compared with January 2009 – and off 29.5 percent from December.”

A larger theme for Sacramento homes and other real estate in the county was noted by a March 2, 2010 article in the Sacramento Business Journal. The article, written by Jeff Clabaugh, found that “The median sales price in Sacramento County for homes of all types, including newly built ones, was $165,000 in January, the same price compared to January 2008.”