Home prices retreat in the Fresno region. How do they compare to before the pandemic?
Home prices have retreated from record levels of a few months ago in Fresno and across the central San Joaquin Valley. But continued high demand means that it still costs tens of thousands of dollars more to buy a house now than it did before the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the region.
The California Association of Realtors reports that the median “sold” price for single-family homes in Fresno County market was $405,000 in August – the most recent month for which the statewide organization has published its sales data. That’s a drop of $20,000 compared to the record median price – the point of the market at which half of homes sold for more and half for less – of $425,000 set in April and tied in June.
The August median for Fresno County was the lowest it has been since February.
But the August median, while down from the summer record, remains almost 40% higher than the pre-pandemic level in Fresno County from January 2020. At that time, the median selling price was reported at just under $290,000.
A similar pattern of price declines over recent months compared to mid-year records is evident in neighboring Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties:
- Kings County saw its median price peak at $381,500 in May. The August median was $321,750 – a drop of almost 16% from May, but 30% higher than January 2020, when the median was just over $247,000. The August median in Kings County was the lowest it has been since September 2021.
- Madera County’s median selling price reached its high-water mark in July, climbing to $433,000 based on homes sold in the month. By August, it was down to $400,000 – a drop of about 7.6%, and the lowest since February. The August median was also about 20% higher than January 2020, when it was about $335,000.
- In Merced County, the August median was $385,000, compared to the summer peak of more than $414,000 in May. The drop of about 7% brought the median to its lowest level since March. It’s also more than 36% higher than in January 2020, when the median was less than $283,000.
- Tulare County saw its median price reach a record $378,000 in June. By August, the median was down 7.4%, to $350,000. That’s the lowest it has been since February. The August median is almost 46% more than it was in January 2020, when it was reported at $240,000.
The Fresno Association of Realtors reported that in the Fresno-Clovis market – a narrower range than the countywide figures provided by the state Realtors association – the median price in August was $390,000, but rebounded by almost 10% to $405,000 in September.
The average number of days a home sat on the market before being sold in the Fresno-Clovis area has been trending higher over the past couple of months. In April and May, homes were on the market for an average of less than two weeks, the Fresno association reported. That rose to 14 days in June and July, ramped up to 20 days in August, and climbed again to 24 days in September.
Across California, the statewide median selling price for a single-family home was reported at $839,460. That’s 6.7% below the record of $900,170 reported in May. But it’s also 46% more than the January 2020 median of $575,160 estimated by the California Association of Realtors.
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 8:40 AM.
