The San Mateo real estate market, a substantial subsidiary of the San Francisco Bay Area's housing market, saw a sharp decline in the number of homes sold during the month of July. MDA DataQuick, for example has reported to a number of news outlets that the number of home sales in the larger region decreased by more than twenty percent. According to an August 19, 2010 report from ABC 7 News, "A bleak new snapshot of the local economy tonight: *every county in the bay area* recorded a "double-digit decline" in "home sales," for the month of July. Here is a bleak snapshot of the local economy -- every county in the Bay Area recorded a double-digit decline in home sales for the month of July. Sales were down 23 percent from a year ago, making it the worst month of July in 15 years. Nguyen is not alone. The home sale numbers from DataQuick are brutal. In July, 6,773 homes sold in the nine county Bay Area region. That's a dramatic 19 percent drop from the month before. Real estate agents say some of the pullback can be blamed on the federal tax credit expiring, but many say the bigger issues are a lack of money and confidence...Not even record low mortgage rates hovering near four percent enticed buyers. The CEO of The Loan Source, Rick Soukoulis, says that may in fact have temporarily stalled activity...What is fairly stable are home prices. DataQuick reports the median Bay Area home sold for $402,000. That's down 2 percent from June but up 2 percent from a year ago. As for home sales, there is a lot of interest in what the next couple of months will bring."
The news that fewer San Mateo homes for sale were being sold recently was echoed by a second reporter by the Associated Press. The article, published locally by NBC Bay Area News, noted that "A tracking firm says home sales in the San Francisco Bay Area plummeted nearly 23 percent last month from the previous year to reach their lowest level in 15 years. San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said Thursday that the drop from about 8,800 homes in July 2009 to around 6,800 homes last month came as the market adjusted to the end of federal tax credits for first-time buyers. The firm says last month was the slowest July since 1995, when just under 6,700 homes sold. Last month's sales were also down about 19 percent from around 8,400 in June."