Housing prices have dipped statewide. How does the market look for Merced County?

After a couple years of house prices rising in Merced County, the median selling price of a house in the local market dipped a bit in June.

The drop in price has followed a statewide trend between May and June.

Statewide, the median price – the point of the market at which half of homes sold for more and half for less – dropped by about 4% in June, according to data from the California Association of Realtors. Of the California’s 58 counties, that median price fell in 32 counties, including high-priced Bay Area markets like San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.

According to the California Association of Realtors data, the June 2022 median home price in Merced County was $400,000, compared to $414,250 in May 2022. In contrast, Merced County’s median home price was $360,000 in June 2021.

The average home sale price in Merced County, the total sum of all sales in the market divided by the number of homes sold, hit its peak for 2022 in May at $436,900, according to Brandon Ruscoe, agent for Better Homes and Gardens, Everything Real Estate. That price dipped to $420,597 in June and recovered to $436,549 in July.

Housing prices in Merced County hit an all-time high of $464,750 in December 2021.

“While prices haven’t yet and probably will not fall off a cliff, we have seen a pull back in the number of transactions and many listing price reductions across the board,” Ruscoe said. “There have been slightly over 160 price drops for Merced County single family home listings between June 1 and August 1st.”

Ruscoe points to a slight rise in inventory locally as one reason for the shift.

There were 259 homes listed for sale in Merced County in April. That number has climbed to 363 homes on the market in Merced County in July.

“With interest rates increasing, buyers have a little less buying power and refinances have drastically declined,” Ruscoe said. “That said, inventory is entering the market and committed buyers finally having some breathing room to be picky and negotiate some. After several years as a seller’s market we are reaching more of an equilibrium with buyer’s gaining negotiating leverage.”

Other Central Valley counties have bucked the statewide trend and have seen housing prices increase from May to June.

In Stanislaus County, the median home price rose 1.1%, from $475,000 in May to $480,000 in June.

Fresno and Tulare counties saw the median selling price increase between May and June. In Fresno County, the median ticked up by about 1.2%, reaching $425,000 to tie the record set in April 2022. That figure is also about 13% higher than it was a year earlier, in June 2021, when the median price was $375,000.

The June 2022 median selling price in Tulare County was $378,000, up from $370,000 in May. That represents an increase of almost 2.2%.

Median sale price drops are fairly common this time of year. And the median sales price in the state, $863,790, is up 5.4% since June of last year. However, the month-over-month decline was among the largest going back to the Great Recession, when monthly price drops often hovered around 5% or more, according to CAR’s historical data.

Year-over-year sales traffic also was down significantly in the state in June. Experts say that’s a result of buyers becoming more patient and picky as mortgage rate hikes add hundreds of dollars to monthly payments. Even with the market cool-down, California still has the most expensive real estate in the nation, according to Redfin.

The Fresno Bee and Modesto Bee contributed to this report.