FAIRFIELD — Solano County home prices continue to rebound from a plunge during the Great Recession, with the median home price reaching $300,000 this spring and remaining there for several months.
It’s quite a rebound from a slump that took them from a high of $490,000 nearly a decade ago to less than $175,000 in early 2012. But the market continues to be plagued by a dearth of homes on the market – in June, for instance, only 565 homes were sold in the county. A decade ago, it was routine for more than 1,000 homes to sell during summer months.
The plateau for sales prices – the median price stayed around $300,000 for four consecutive months this spring – could help bring more homes on the market.
“That is a healthy thing for the marketplace,” said Denise Kirchubel, a Realtor with ReMax Gold in Fairfield. “You can’t sustain and support increasing values forever. Now we’re back to the point where there are more homes coming on the market and they’re staying on the market a little longer.”
Kirchubel said that as homeowners become comfortable with the value of their homes, they will be more likely to consider selling them – to move up or move out.
There is definitely a rush on the lower-end homes.
“Anything under $300,000 goes in less than a week,” said Darla Stever, a veteran Realtor in Fairfield. “The reason more expensive homes stay on the market is they are listed too high, so they’re not selling.”
Both Stever and Kirchubel said that more of the lower-end homes are selling to people who will live there, rather than the all-cash investors who dominated the market during the market plunge. They were known for turning the homes into rentals.
The prices are slightly higher in Northern Solano County – Fairfield, Suisun City, Vacaville, Rio Vista and Dixon. According to the Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc., the median price in June for that part of the county was $320,000 – an increase of $43,000 from a year ago.
Further good news is in the number of homes in the county entering foreclosure – a number that spiked during the Great Recession, when a high percentage of homeowners were “underwater” in their loans. According to DataQuick, Solano foreclosure notices plunged from 492 in the second quarter of 2013 to 277 this year – a drop of 44 percent. Compare that to more than 2,000 foreclosure notices going out in the second quarter of 2008 and 2009, followed by more than 1,000 in that quarter of 2010, 2011 and 2012.
And while the median price stays around $300,000, there is this exception: The palatial Villa de Madre in Suisun Valley, built by Copart founder Willis Johnson, is scheduled to go to auction in September. Johnson’s asking price for the 22,000-square-foot house on 80 acres of vineyards is $18 million. If it goes for anything close to that, it will be the highest price ever paid for a home in the Fairfield-Suisun region.
Reach Brad Stanhope at 427-6958 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bradstanhope.
