Home market resumes slide in median price

Bakersfield’s single-family home market resumed its downward adjustment in November, following an upward blip in October, as supply and demand both decreased significantly month over month.

The result was modest declines in local benchmarks: The city’s median sales price for an existing home dipped 2.6 percent from October’s level to settle at $370,000, while the corresponding measure for new construction slipped 4.1 percent to hit $434,100, according to a report by Bakersfield appraiser Gary Crabtree.

November’s slowdown came as little surprise amid more significant, statelevel declines attributed to inflation, relatively high mortgage rates and suggestion the overall economy may be in for a correction.

Still, President Anna Albiar of the Bakersfield Association of Realtors interpreted Crabtree’s numbers as typical for a November. She said by email she remains optimistic the local market “will continue to normalize.”

In the current market cycle, Bakersfield home prices first started to slip in June, and have since done so month after month with the exception of October’s surprise 4.1 percent increase in the existing-home price median, which Crabtree credited to lower-income buyers being priced out of the market.

The number of existing homes sold in November, considered a measure of market demand, totaled 324, a monthover-month decrease of almost 14 percent. The figure represented a nearly 47 percent drop since November 2021.

For new homes, the decline to 94 sales in November, down 7.8 percent from October, was down 39 percent from a year earlier.

Local homes listed for sale in November, a measure of supply, came to 811. That was more than 11 percent lower than in October but up about 147 percent from November 2021.

Statewide, overall home sales volume last month was off 13 percent from October and down almost 48 percent from a year before — the largest year-over-year drop in at least four decades, according to the California

Association of Realtors. CAR said the slowing sales continued a 17-month downward trend.

The state’s sales price median, $777,500, was down 3 percent from October and represented the third consecutive monthly decline.

CAR Vice President and Chief Economist Jordan Levine forecast further price declines, but he also predicted some moderation next year.

“With mortgage rates rising at the fastest pace in years, sales and price growth will likely remain on a downward trend in the short term,” he said in a news release. “However, pending sales suggest that the pace of declines should moderate in the coming months.”

Albiar noted market demand has suffered locally and across the state as the highest interest rates in 20 years have cut into affordability. She said economic challenges remain at the state and national levels despite improvements in inflation, a “slight increase” in consumer sentiment and healthy unemployment data.

“The market will likely get slightly worse before it starts getting better, but pending sales indicate that the pace of declines should begin moderating in the coming months as the market nears bottom,” she stated.