The big news in August was the Government take-over of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae which has had the desired effect of bolstering mortgage backed securities and lowering interest rates. What it ends up costing us all is yet to be determined but suffice to say it’ll probably be worse than if we suffered through a protracted catastrophic collapse of the United States’ financial markets.
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Looking at San Mateo County’s housing activity for August you get a glimpse at the impact the housing downturn has had and where it may be headed.
This graph shows the correlation between the number of homes for sale and the median price:
- Median Price is down a statistically insignificant amount–$5K from July to $795,000. Down 16.3% from August 2007
- Belmont and San Carlos down around 4% year over year
- Menlo Park posts a ½ percent increase in the median price.
- Closed sales down from July’s 428 to 376 in August–last August there were 366 sales
- Inventory declines again–third month in a row from 1886 in July to 1773 in August. Up 14% over August 2007 at 15544
- Month’s supply of home rises only slightly to 4.7 from 4.4