Napa median home prices jump 20.9% for March compared to a year ago

“Median home prices surge” was an article by Jennifer Huffman on the front page of Napa Valley’s largest circulation newspaper, the Napa Register. The article went on to state home prices here in the Napa Valley had increased another 20.9% from March 2013 to March 2014. This was on top of 21.2 % for March 2012 to March 2013.

Here are a couple excerpts from her story:

The median price for a Napa County home rose 20.9 percent over the past year, from $395,500 in March 2013 to $478,000 this March, while the number of homes sold declined 8.5 percent, the result of a strong local economy and a tight supply of homes on the market, according to data recently released by DataQuick information services.

Bay Area-wide, the median price paid for a home in the nine-county region rose in March to $579,000, the highest since December 2007, when it was $587,500. The all-time peak was in June and July 2007, when it stood at $665,000. During the depths of the downturn, the median dropped to as low as $290,000, in March 2009. That means roughly three-fourths of the median’s post-financial-crisis decline has been regained.

The article quotes a local agent and it is true there when twice as many sales in one million dollar plus sales from 2013 to 2014, 8 versus 16. However, there is one oddity in these numbers, the median sales price for the homes fell by nearly 39%, from $1,700,000 in 2013 to $1,226,000 in 2014.

Here are March and April’s sales for the two years from Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, BAREIS my local multiple listing service.