The latest key market indicators coming from California are mixed, with housing starts up but existing home sales in retreat.
According to the California Building Industry Association, June starts posted their largest monthly gain since December 2008. At the same time, the California Association of Realtors said sales fell by 4.2%.
According to the Construction Industry Research Board, permits were pulled for 4,238 total housing units in June, up 19% from the same month a year ago and up 34% from May. It was the largest monthly total in 18 months, when 4,658 total permits had been issued in December '08.
For the first half of the year, permits were pulled for 21,149 units, an increase of 17% over the same period the year before, when 18,083 permits were issued. Single-family permits were up 8% percent while multi-family permits rose 35%.
CBIA President Liz Snow expressed concern that production levels are still near an all-time bottom. "We're still hovering around the record-low production levels of the past two years, and the industry is still facing an uphill battle in the wake of a stabilizing housing market and high unemployment," she said.
Meanwhile, CAR reported that members of its more than 90 statewide affiliates sold 492,800 properties in June (on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis), a 4.2% drop from 514,230 in June '09. But sales were down 11.1% from May. On the positive side, the median sales price was up 13.6% year-over-year, from $274,640 to $311,950. In May, though, the median was $324,430.
The index of unsold inventory, a measure that indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of houses on the market at the current sales pace, rose from 4.2 months in June '09 to 4.8 months this June. But it took only one less day - 43.3 days vs. 44.3 - to sell a property than it did a year ago.
