The sales of existing homes in San Joaquin County jumped by 65 percent last month as the median sales price continued to sink, while new-home sales fell to new lows.

Pending sales of existing homes - most of them bank-owned repossessions - jumped from 530 in January to 877 last month, according to figures from the latest Coldwell Banker Grupe-TrendGraphix monthly sales report, based on Multiple Listing Service data.

That's up almost 31/2 times from 257 in September, the sales low point of the current market downturn.

Meanwhile, new-home sales fell last month to the lowest point so far in this real estate decline, with a total of 46 building permits for single-family homes being issued countywide, according to a new report from the Construction Industry Research Board, which tracks the building sector in California.

That's an 82 percent drop from February 2007.

Stockton-area brokers and agents said that after two painful years of a real estate market downturn, the flurry of foreclosure almost feels as if a drought is ending.

"There's a tremendous amount of activity in the low price range of under $250,000," said Jerry Abbott, president and co-owner of Coldwell Banker Grupe. "I'm in a much better mood now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel - and it's not a train."

Stockton resident Rose Taylan wants a ride on an upcoming foreclosure tour bus that will be canvassing two of Stockton's best neighborhoods: Brookside and Spanos Park.

Her husband will retire soon, she said, and they would like the security of earning a good return on an investment property bought at a good price.

With prices dropping and looking promising, the time seems good to try to buy a good house, she said.

"Later on, I know the real estate will go up," Taylan said. "The prices are really very low now, and the interest rates are low."

Lorrie Docter, owner/broker of Docter & Docter Realtors in Stockton, she's getting a lot more calls from buyers these days.

"For a long time, buyers were hiding," she said. "I don't know whether it's a combination of price and waiting long enough, or sometimes, nice weather helps."

The buyers are even having to compete, she said. One of her agents submitted a client's offer on a bank-owned foreclosure that attracted 15 other offers, Docter said. The client didn't get the house.

"It's at least encouraging to see buyers interested," she said.

Broker Bob Riggs, of Riggs & Associates GMAC Real Estate in Stockton, said there's a long way to go before getting back to a normal market, but foreclosure asset managers finally are pricing the properties low enough to move them.

Some are priced so low compared with other houses, he said, that ensuing heavy bidding pushes the selling price up.

This is in contrast to the boom days, when many buyers were competing with a low number of listings in the county. Several years ago, it wasn't uncommon for a new listing to draw multiple offers in a few hours.

But those were family- or investor-owned homes and not bank repos. At least three-fourths of the current sales market for existing homes is taken up by bank-owned properties handled by institutional asset managers, Stockton-area brokers say.

Sheree Cox, a Coldwell Banker Grupe real estate agent in Stockton, said that means more frustration for competing buyers because a desirable property attracts more multiple offers due to the length of time it takes an institutional manager to respond to an offer.

A family usually answers an offer in a day or two, she said, while an institutional manager responds at least a week later, if not longer.

"This is worse," Cox said.

Greg Paquin, president of the Gregory Group, a real estate information and consulting service in Folsom, said the flourish of foreclosure buying actually is pretty good news for the real estate market in general.

It at least sets the price point at which people will buy homes these days, he said, adding: "I think people are finding the foreclosure values are better than the new-home values."

Joe Anfuso, president and chief executive officer of Stockton-based Florsheim Homes, said he doesn't think the rising interest in foreclosures is cutting into new-home sales.

"Those are the vultures, the investors," he said. "They're not new-home buyers."

The low building permit numbers for February reflect a wariness among builders to pull any construction permits on speculation in this slow market, Anfuso said.

"There's very little of that compared with previous years," he said.

Contact reporter Bruce Spence at (209) 943-8581 orbspence@recordnet.com.