Marin Home Sales, Median Price Stay on the Rise in June

The Marin real estate market continued its ascent in June, bucking a Bay Area-wide trend in year-over-year home sales and seeing its median home price rise by more than $100,000 from the same period a year ago, according to a real estate information service.

Marin recorded 375 homes sales in June, up 13 percent from 332 homes sold in June 2012, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The jump made Marin the only county in the nine-county Bay Area to see home sales rise in that period, with six of those counties recording double-digit decreases in home sales. 

Marin’s median home price in June was $802,000, a nearly 15 percent spike from $700,000 in June 2012 but less than a 1 percent jump from a median price of $795,000 in May and $799,000 in April.

Each of the nine counties in the Bay Area saw double-digit median home price increases in June compared to June 2012, led by 44 percent spikes in Alameda and Napa counties. Marin’s median home price increase was the lowest year-over-year jump by far of any of the nine counties in the Bay Area, according to DataQuick.

The Bay Area as a whole recorded a median home price of $555,000 in June, up 33 percent from $417,000 in June 2012 and up 7 percent from $519,000 in May. The year-over-year median home price increase for the Bay Area was the fastest pace on record, DataQuick officials said.

For detached single-family homes, Marin's median home price in June was $940,000, up nearly 24 percent from $759,000 in June 2012 and up more than 4 percent from $900,000 in May. The median price for condos in Marin was $480,000, up nearly 32 percent from $365,000 and up more than 16 percent from $413,500 in May.

(Note: The chart above reflects median home price for all homes – both detached single-family homes and condos/townhouses – across the nine-county Bay Area.)

DataQuick officials attributed the marked rise in home prices to the disappearance of distress sales, an improving economy and mortgage rates that remain very low. The dip on total home sales across the Bay Area was due to a slow-growing supply of homes for sale continuing to fall short of demand and an easing of purchases by cash and investor buyers eased.

“It’s easier for a market to regain lost ground than to push into new territory,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in a statement. “We’re still bouncing off the bottom. This next part of the cycle should be fairly self-adjusting. As prices go up, more homes will come on the market. Price pressures will ease. The only element we don’t know much about right now is how much pent-up demand there really is out there.”