Mercury News
From the article:
The Bay Area's single-family home market is leaving the darkest days of the housing crash behind, a report from housing information company DataQuick showed Thursday.
For six months or more, median single-family home prices have gained by double digits on a yearly basis in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, DataQuick said.
Foreclosures are edging closer to normal levels and sales of midpriced homes are increasing. While there are too few houses on sale to meet the demand, the market is looking up, real estate experts say.
"Everybody's forgotten where we were," said Jennifer Branchini, president-elect of the Bay East Association of Realtors. "It wasn't a great place."
In Alameda County, the median price of $402,000 in February was up 15.5 percent from February 2012; Contra Costa County's $305,000 was up 25.8 percent; San Mateo saw a 22.6 percent gain to $692,500, and Santa Clara County's $625,000 was up 27.6 percent.
Median sales prices for existing single-family homes in the Bay Area have climbed back 44.6 percent since they hit bottom in March 2009 during a wave of low-end foreclosure sales and a dormant mid- to high-end market.
Year-over-year prices have been increasing for months through a combination of market forces, including too few homes for sale and a gaggle of free-spending investors, many of them paying premium prices in cash. Investors include hedge funds, foreign buyers drawn to what are relatively low prices compared with real estate in their home countries, and mom-and-pop buyers of one or two homes for retirement income.
"There is quite a bit of excitement out there," said Carl San Miguel, president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors. "But there's a new battle because of the limited inventory, with frustration from buyers making offers and coming back empty-handed.