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Ross Valley Home Sales Decline in January, But Prices Continue to Rise

Despite a sales slowdown in January, the regional housing market continues to rebound, and prices continue to rise.

Low inventory caused Marin's housing market to lose some of its holiday season robustness in January, but prices continued to outpace those from a year prior, a real estate information service reported.

The median home price rose by more than 20 percent in Marin County from January 2012 to January 2013, DataQuick reported. The median home price for the county last month was $640,000, up from $523,000 in January 2012.

It's expected the median home price in Fairfax and San Anselmo will increase by 5 percent this year, a recent study predicted.

But the number of home sales in Marin County actually declined when comparing January 2012 to last month: 181 homes sold in Janary 2013, down slightly from 191 a year ago.

A total of 19 homes were sold in Fairfax and San Anselmo in January – 5 in Fairfax and 13 in San Anselmo – according to the real estate website Zillow.com. That was down from 27 - 8 in Fairfax and 19 in San Anselmo – in December 2012, according to the site.

Throughout the nine-county Bay Area tracked by DataQuick, home prices and the volume of sales completed in January were the in six years and the tenth straight year-over-year increase in the median sale price.

The median price paid for a home in the Bay Area was $415,000 in January. That was down 6.3 percent from $442,750 in December, and up 27.3 percent from $326,000 in January a year ago, according to DataQuick.

DataQuick President John Walsh said in a statement that underlying Bay Area real estate trends like a still-dysfunctional mortgage market indicate that the market is still far from normal.

"That said, the market imbalances are moving toward normalcy, with baby steps,” he said.

Bay Area Housing Stats for January Sales Volume Median Price County Jan 2012 Jan 2013 % Change Jan 2012 Jan 2013 % Change Alameda 1,097 1,196 9% $295,000 $385,000 30.5% Contra Costa 1,115 1,165 4.5% $235,000 $301,500 28.3% Marin 191 181 -5.2% $523,000 $640,000 22.4% Napa 93 108 16.1% $332,500 $380,000 14.3% Santa Clara 1,183 1,115 -5.7% $418,000 $550,000 31.6% San Francisco 308 394 27.9% $602,500 $699,000 16% San Mateo 412 421 2.2% $465,000 $600,500 29.1% Solano 508 523 3.0% $179,500 $219,000 21.8% Sonoma 423 398 -5.9% $285,000 $340,000 19.3% Bay Area 5,330 5,501 3.2% $326,000 $415,000 27.3%

Check out what else is on San Anselmo – Fairfax Patch:

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Just a short thought to get the word out quickly about anything in your neighborhood.
Share something with your neighbors. Write a new post... What's up? Make an announcement, speak your mind, or sell something
Jessica Mullins (Editor) May 15, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Thanks for the feedback, John. To my knowledge, we don't have a comments stream anywhere. DefinitelyRead More submit your comments here (it's the most efficient way to get your thoughts heard at the higher level): http://ow.ly/l4cyg
M. Kathryn Thompson May 21, 2013 at 09:54 am
Dr. Gullion is also lovely with men who get breast cancer as my husband did, he's the best!
Bren April 22, 2013 at 04:13 pm
Is anybody else here getting multiple e-mail notifications of new comments by Jo Tog, and thenRead More clicking the link, only to find that they are actually old comments from Jo Tog, but with today's date on them? What's the deal? Did all his comments get flagged and deleted, and now he's re-posting them? Most curious.
Sierra Salin April 22, 2013 at 02:02 pm
Jo Trog, we live in a Corporatocracy, not a republic. We abdicated the Republic after 9/11, if notRead More before. Know the difference.
Hiba April 21, 2013 at 06:52 pm
Banning the sale in a free market economy is too strong. I believe people should be able to chooseRead More so long as the product is labeled correctly, and even placed in a section with a big sign that says "GM Food products". Would I buy it if I pass the section at the grocery store: NO.
A May 4, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Many people in Marin are already at 50% or more of their entire income to pay for housing. And weRead More have no rent control here in Marin which is the only way I've seen that most seniors have been able to stay in San Francisco for several decades. Regarding your statement: "Market rate housing generates tax revenues, which in turn pay for schools, parks, emergency services, etc." Low income people pay a lot of sales tax in Marin (which is really high) and that also supports these causes. If they don't have the money to pay property taxes to own property, then the fact is, they just can't pay it. Be thankful that a large group of the population in Marin makes enough money to own property and pay it (and turn around and sell their houses for a handsome profit as well, don't forget about that.) Some folks here are just SPOILED rotten. Perhaps you should lobby that Marin employers just pay people living wages so they can afford to become buyers here and pay property taxes instead of trying to lobby against housing for the poor. Goodness knows how many taxes child-free low income people have paid to support wealthy folks kids and schools here. We don't get any of that, either, but we still have to pay for it...
A May 4, 2013 at 12:53 pm
I've heard that Marin is already in violation (either state or federal, or both) of not havingRead More enough low income housing in the county for its population. I think the county is under pressure to come into compliance which it has been out of in this area for a long time. This can only serve to better the lives of low income and elderly people in our county and perhaps reduce homelessness as well which is something we sorely need to do. However, what is amazing to me is that what we are calling "low income" housing in Marin still costs $1K+ a month per person from what I can tell. That's not "low income". Someone paying that much needs to be earning about $4K a month to keep housing costs in the 25-30% range that every financial planner recommends for a basic budget. I see a lot of low income people working HARD full-time to earn $1,600 a month here in restaurants, grocery stores, retail, hair salons, gyms, even clinics. They can't afford to live in Marin so many of them commute in from the east bay and further north to work in Marin. That is what is not sustainable. Think about the gas and pollution and the quality of life in the community due to turnover because there is no personal interaction with the staff of a lot of these places anymore because they don't stick around for very long.