Jul. 25—Bakersfield's single-family home market held more or less steady last month despite higher interest rates and a surge in listings that left prices slightly higher for existing houses and a bit lower for newly built properties.
Local appraiser Gary Crabtree's report on June home sales attributed some of the recent market strength — Bakersfield outperformed the state overall in key respects — to a lingering supply shortage during the prime marketing season of the year.
He also warned of repercussions from rising prices and declining affordability, noting in his report, "The relatively high interest rates and inflation continue to price the entry level buyer out of the market."
What happens next may depend on inflation and supply — the same two factors that have for months driven the local and state markets. There's hope the Federal Reserve may ease up on interest rates if prices moderate across the economy, allowing more people to afford to buy a home. But unless more homes are put up for sale, prices could stay high regardless.
The 490 existing homes listed for sale last month in Bakersfield remained almost 38% less than its level a year earlier, even though the total represented a gain of almost 15% from May.
That higher level of supply was met with a slight, half-percent increase in demand, measured by the 439 existing homes sold last month, which was down more than 23% year over year.
Bottom line, the median price of an existing home sold in Bakersfield in June was $389,000, or 1% greater than May's median and 2.4% more than a year earlier.
Conditions facing the new home market were different, with total sales down 8.2% month over month at 89 homes sold in June. That represented an 8.5% jump from a year before.
The median price of a new home in Bakersfield last month slipped 1.5% month over month to settle at $443,200, which was down 6.2% from a month earlier.
Crabtree characterized the market as stable but noted conditions have changed significantly in two respects.
"Overall," he wrote, "the Bakersfield market remains relatively stable with some 'prime market' season increase but price increases have declined significantly and affordability continues to decline."
Across the state, housing demand in June, as measured by homes sales volume, was 4.1% lower than in May and almost 20% below that of June 2022, according to data from the California Association of Realtors.
Meanwhile, last month's California sales price median was up — but not by much: It increased 0.3% from May, which was 2.4% less than June 2022.