The distribution of July’s homes sales were the highest in North County Inland with 28% of total sales and the lowest in Central San Diego Coastal with 7% of total sales. All the regions had sales growth this July versus last July except for Central San Diego Coastal which had a 2% decline in sales.  If you take Oceanside away from the North County Coastal then that region also had a sales decline of 2%. The highest growth region was South Bay with 11% sales growth. It is apparent that the sales increases are in the regions with the lowest prices which was to be expected due to the dominance of entry level buyers this year.

When it comes to inventory we see the same pattern between regions as we did with sales. South Bay has the lowest absolute inventory and the lowest months supply at 1.1 months, just over a year ago South Bay was in the region of 13 to 15 months supply.  The highest months supply is in Central San Diego Coastal with 5.8 months, if you exclude Oceanside from North County Coastal then the balance of the region has 5.8 months supply as well.

Distress sales – bank owned and short sales – have become a regular part of the San Diego market. We see the highest level of distress in the regions that have increasing sales and the lowest levels in the coastal markets. Oceanside comprises 78% of the distress sale activity in North County Coastal, the rest of NCC has the same levels of distress as Central San Diego Coastal.  The attraction to distress sales is price, in general bank owned and short sales sell for less than non-distress sales. From this chart in my San Diego Market Conditions write up you can see a disconnect between the list price of sold homes versus the list price inventory homes, indicating a price driven market.

Home prices are down across all regions from last year, but if you look at the pattern of monthly price changes you see prices increasing for most regions starting in the March April time frame, multiple offers and bidding wars will do it every time.  The chart shows a strong decline for North County Coastal; however, extracting Oceanside which is atypical of the rest of NCC the price decreases break into two distinctive numbers. Oceanside which makes up 50% of NCC sales has an average sale price of $283,000 and has experienced a 50% price decline from 5 years ago. The balance of NCC has an average selling price of $761,000 and has experienced a 24% price decline from 5 years ago.