Manteca home prices rise 28.6% over year’s time

Manteca’s housing market has regained almost 46 percent of the value it lost since a record high median value of $413,000 for resale homes closing escrow was reached in 2006.

Data released by Trulia.com shows the median closed escrow price for previously owned homes in Manteca between August and October was $225,000. That’s up from $175,000 in the same period of last year.

The median sales price in nearby cities for October for resales closing escrow was $271,000 in Ripon, $198,500 in Lathrop, $193,500 in Escalon, $152,500 in Salida, $129,500 in Stockton, and $109,646 in French Camp.

The biggest surge in Manteca occurred over the summer with median prices gaining $25,000.

“Most of that gain was probably in the last eight weeks,” noted longtime Manteca Realtor Tom Wilson.

Wilson and others believe the bounce in prices is putting the Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop market into another transition period where traditional home sellers - those not doing short sales or caught in foreclosure - will start listing their homes in larger numbers. That’s because values are going up but prices of homes they may want to buy are still at fairly low levels in addition to interest rates.

Economists at UCLA as well as local Realtors such as Wilson believe part of the price recovery being seen now is due to the fact housing has been undervalued in relation to replacement costs. If a home was started from scratch it would cost $100,000 for the land and various connection fees before dirt could even be turned.

Wilson believes significant gains are still on the horizon before prices reach the point they are even with replacement costs.

At the same time Manteca is feeling the impact of rising home prices in the Bay Area. As in previous recoveries, Manteca, Ripon, Lathrop, and Tracy are seeing surges in prices six months behind what is happening in job-rich enclaves such as the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Pleasanton-Livermore. There were 135 active listings in Manteca for the week ending Nov., 7. The average asking price for those homes was $270,437 up 1.4 percent over the previous week when it was $266,826.

If the trend holds, a number of homeowners who have experienced drops in property tax bills in the past four years could be hit with tax bill shock in mid-2013 if the assessor matches values with market trends.

Proposition 13 caps “new” gains in value at 2 percent annually and requires assessors to drop assessments to match market values on a year-to-year basis. Anything that is taken away in terms of assessment, though, can be restored in a year’s time if the market recovers that quickly. 

By Dennis Wyatt
Managing Editor - Manteca Bulletin