Global Investing

With oil prices more than doubling from Dec-Feb lows, those who are lucky enough to enjoy the sunshine are turning to the sun as alternative energy, but lingering effects of the credit crisis might be discouraging consumers from turning to this still-costly alternative energy.

Latest statistics suggest that solar applications are up 15% in megawatts compared with last year, according to Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch report. However, installations are down by 68 percent.

The bank’s analyst Steven Milunovich makes the following observation:

Although these figures imply a soft (and softening) solar market in California, it is likely that customers are deferring installation, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Commercial customers are waiting for financing to improve and for grants to become available, which began in August. Installers tell us that the demand is there, but that financing is holding up installations. We expect some improvement in the second half.

He also thinks that rising electricity rates makes the solar industry makes this too large a market to ignore for investors. Within the sector, solar technology firm SunPower has the leading share, about 30 percent share of completed systems, followed by Sharp and Suntech.

New figures show the once-soaring housing market in California continuing an earthbound descent. According to an index that tracks home sales in major metropolitan areas, the price of a single-family home in June fell an average of 15.9% from last year. But the same index, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Composite-20, released Tuesday, also reported a 25.3% price drop in Los Angeles, a 24.2% decline in San Diego and a 23.7% drop in the San Francisco Bay Area. Only Las Vegas, Miami and Phoenix fared worse, with home prices falling 28.6%, 28.3% and 27.9%, respectively.

The S&P figures come on the heels of equally gloomy numbers from the real estate industry. On Monday the National Association of Realtors said the number of existing homes across the U.S. sold in July rose 3.1% on a seasonally-adjusted basis, while the national median price of an existing home fell around 7% to $212,400. For the same month the California Association of Realtors reported a 43% uptick in the number of existing homes sold statewide but a 40% median price slump, to $350,760, for existing homes.

Lower prices could help those Californians who’ve been priced out of the once-booming housing market, but the state is also among those hardest hit by the real estate bust, and sales volumes in many areas is being pushed by “deeply discounted, distressed sales,” according to CAR President William Brown.