As we reported last week, April home sales in western Nevada County continued the plodding pace we’d seen throughout the first quarter of 2023.
With the latest reporting from the California Association of Realtors, it appears to have been a similar story at the state level last month.
According to the association, April’s sales pace was down 4.7% on a monthly basis from March and down 36.1% from a year ago.
Back home in western Nevada County, April marked an 18.4% slide from March and a 52.7% decrease from April 2022 sales.
“Home sales remained soft as the lock-in effect continued to tighten housing supply and keep would-be sellers from listing their homes for sale, which contributed to a 30% year-over-year drop in new statewide active listings ― the largest drop since May 2020 when the pandemic shutdown took place,” said association Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Jordan Levine. “A surge in borrowing costs as mortgage rates surpassed 7% in late February and early March also contributed to the market weakness, as many transactions that opened in those two months were closed in April.”
California’s median home price surpassed $800,000 in April for the first time since October 2022, increasing 3.0% from March’s $791,490 to $815,340. Despite the price improvement since early this year, April’s median price was lower on a year-over-year basis for the sixth consecutive month, declining 7.8% from the revised $884,680 recorded last April.
In western Nevada County, the median price of a home sold in April was $548,000, up 5.4% over March but down 7.8% from April 2022’s median price of $592,000, the highest recorded for any single month in the past eight years, according to MLS statistics.
The state association has revised its 2023 Housing Market Forecast and projects existing single-family home sales to reach 279,900 units in 2023, a decline of 18.2% from the 342,000 units sold in 2022.
“While home prices in general are expected to improve in the second half of the year, the California median home price is projected to decrease 5.6% to $776,600 in 2023, down from the annual median price of $822,300 recorded in 2022,” the association stated in its report. “The updated projection on the statewide median price is an increase from the estimate of $758,600 forecast last October. C.A.R. also projects the 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate to average 6.3% for the year.”
According to the report, all 51 counties tracked by the California Association of Realtors registered a sales decline from the previous year, with sales in 44 counties dropping more than 30% and sales in five counties sliding more than 50% from a year ago. Mariposa (-80.8%) had the largest sales drop, followed by Calaveras (-59.0%) and Santa Cruz (-58.4%).
As stated above, western Nevada County saw a 52.7% decrease from April 2022 sales.
Countywide, including Truckee and all of eastern Nevada County, sales were off 52.1% from April 2022, the association reported. Placer County saw a 38.5% decrease in sales.
Click here to read the full California Association of Realtors April 2023 Sales and Price Report.
