The Burlingame real estate market, a small portion of the larger San Bruno and Bay Area housing markets, showed a decrease in sales but an increase in prices. According to a May 20, 2010 article from Reuters, “Home sales in the nine-county San Francisco region continued to shift toward its more expensive markets in April, reducing overall sales and lifting the area’s median sales price from year-earlier levels, a report from MDA DataQuick said on Thursday.” The report went on to note that “The region posted 7,003 sales of houses and condominiums in April, up 0.2 percent from March and down 1.9 percent from a year earlier, while the area’s median home price last month of $370,000 marked a decline of 2.6 percent from march and an increase of 21.7 percent from a year earlier, the report by the real estate information service said.”

The average purchase price of a Burlingame and Bay Area home for sale increased considerably in the month of April. According to a May 21, 2010 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, “Median resale home prices in the Bay Area rose 30 percent in April compared with the prior year, in a market that featured fewer foreclosures and more activity in higher end neighborhoods, according to a real estate report released Thursday.” The piece by Robert Selna went on to note that “Meanwhile, the total number of homes resold in the Bay Area – that is, not newly constructed – fell slightly year-over-year as the higher-priced sales activity could not offset declines in the more affordable areas, according to data analyzed by MDA DataQuick, a San Diego real estate research firm that produces monthly market updates.”

Both of these trends in the Burlingame and Bay Area real estate markets – the decrease in sales and the increase in prices – were also mentioned in a May 20, 2010 article from the Contra Costa Times. This piece, written by Eve Mitchell, stated that “Bay Area home sales in April were down slightly from a year ago while the median sales price rose sharply. The sales slowdown was tied to some buyers delaying escrow until May 1 to get a bigger home-buying tax break.”