Home sales up in December

Humboldt County homes sold like hot cakes during the month of December.

Sales of single-family homes in the county were up 31.6% in December compared to December 2019 and prices were up 16.2%, going from a median price of $318,500 in December 2019 to $370,000 during the past December, according to data from the California Association of Realtors. Sales were up 0.8% more in December than November.

“They’re going as quickly as they come on the market,” said Leonard Ilgunas, broker associate and realtor at Lucky Star Realty. “I mean within a week there’s multiple offers, three to 10 on a property.”

A couple years ago, you might get one or two offers on a property within 30 days, Ilgunas said.

“At this time of year for the last 10 years we’ve had an average of 500 homes available on the market,” Ilgunas said. “And now we have 145 available in all of Humboldt.”

The median time homes stay on the market before escrow opens went down from 35.5 days in December 2019 to 12.5 days in November and 12 days in December, according to the association’s data. At that rate, it would take 1.8 months to sell the remaining houses on the market in the county, down from 2.2 months in November and 4.2 months a year ago.

Low interest rates are driving the growth in home sales, Ilgunas said. Usually, they’re around 4% to 5%, but have been at 3% or below this year, he said.

Federal home mortgage lender Freddie Mac issued a news release Thursday stating the 30year fixed-rate mortgage is expected to average below 3% for the rest of the year.