Sales Results for December, 2005 for Marin County

Below are some results of single family house (SFH) sales for December, 2005 in Marin. Percent sales of SFHs are down about -19% as compared to this time last year. The average price is up 11% since November. Condo prices showed a year-over-year loss in price of a little more than 2%.

First, this is what West Bay Real Estate has to say:

Home sales in Marin County fell 8.3% from the month before, and were off 18.8% compared to December 2004. The median price for single-family homes gained 2.7% to $960,000 from November. The year-over-year appreciation was 9.7%, the third time in the past four months year-over-year appreciation has been in single-digits. The average home price gained 11% to $1,338,698, an annual increase of 24.9%.

The median price for condos fell 6.3% to $506,000, a year-over-year loss of 2.2%. That hasn't happened since December 2002. Sales fell 13.6%, and were off 20.3% compared to last December.

Here is a plot of percent sales of SFHs over the course of the year. The red line is the best-fitting (least squares) trend line:

(Click on the graph for a larger view.)

What do we make of the fact that percent sales are falling on a year-over-year basis yet the average price is up so much?

Take a look at the next graph that shows the number of houses sold grouped into sales price bins of $200,000 intervals (so $400,000 on the abscissa means the number of houses that sold in the price range $200,000 to $400,000, $1,000,000 means the number of houses that sold in the price range $800,000 to $1,000,000, etc.):

(Click on the graph for a larger view.)

It's a little hard to see in this graph, but quite a few houses priced in the more extreme price range (say, greater than $4,000,000) sold last month; some for well over $7,000,000. Compare these results with those of October and November of 2005. These extreme values ("outliers" in statistical parlance) significantly affect the average (by shifting the average closer to the outliers) and affect the median by a little. If just the two houses that sold above $7,000,000 in December are removed from the sample (so as to be comparable to the October and November analyses), then the average sales price in December for Marin is $1,073,893 which is down from November's $1,206,201 figure -- in other words a one month loss in SFH sales price of -11%.