Three years of home price stability. That's pretty much what Stanislaus County has had since 2009. Unfortunately for homeowners, prices have stabilized at a depressingly low level.
Stanislaus' median home sales price ended 2011 at $130,000, which worked out to a measly $80 per square foot. Compare that with December 2005, when the county's median price per square foot hit $247, according to RealQuest, a real estate research firm.
Of course, homes were sold for three times as much then as they are now, and the economic world has changed dramatically since the region's housing boom peaked six years ago.
Home prices throughout the Northern San Joaquin Valley plunged month after month from 2006 through 2008. But prices pretty much have leveled off since then.
Stanislaus' median sales price has fluttered between $140,000 and $125,000 since January 2009, with $130,000 being the most common monthly median. Just as it was last month.
Home sales volume, however, was low in December, with 619 Stanislaus County homes sold. In December 2004 and 2005, by contrast, more than 1,000 homes sold in the county.
During the building boom, lots of those sales were for new homes. Virtually no new homes sold last month in Stanislaus County because construction has all but disappeared.
The county issued 4,489 single-family home building permits in 2005. Last year, only 120 such permits were granted, according to the Construction Industry Research Board.
Fewer building permits were issued in 2011 than at any time for at least 50 years. Back in the 1960s, for example, an average of 500 homes per year were built in Modesto alone.
The housing market collapse sent prices into a steep decline. As the recession deepened and businesses started cutting back, unemployment took off. Job losses in construction, finance and other real estate-related businesses quickly mounted.
Mortgage defaults followed, and soon the region was awash in foreclosures. Demand for new homes disappeared as homeowners lost their equity and struggled to hang on to their current homes.
Fortunately, the latest foreclosure data indicate that the region is seeing fewer foreclosures — although more than in the rest of the state.
Since the mortgage mess began in 2007, public records show 25,724 Stanislaus houses and condos have been auctioned off on the courthouse steps because of delinquent loans. That included 4,181 homes last year and 793 during October, November and December.
There were fewer foreclosures those three months than any other quarter since mid-2007. The same was true in Merced and San Joaquin counties.
Notices of mortgage default, the first step in the foreclosure process, also declined significantly during October, November and December throughout the valley and most of California.
Real estate professionals have said the region must reduce the number of foreclosed properties on the market before existing home sales can pick up, housing prices can rise and demand for new homes can return.
Bee staff writer J.N. Sbranti can be reached at jsbranti@modbee.com or (209) 578-2196.
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