Southern California home sales rise (modestly) in October

Home sales in Southern California rose modestly in October, and prices were above year-earlier levels in two counties, San Diego and Orange, MDA DataQuick reported.

Overall in the six-county area, the median sale price declined by the smallest amount in two years, the La Jolla, Calif., data provider said. It cited a “shrinking inventory of homes for sale and government and industry efforts to stoke demand and curtail foreclosures.”

Completed sales of new and resale homes and condominiums in October totaled 22,132 in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties, DataQuick said. That was up 2.8% from a year earlier.

October was the 16th consecutive month to show a sales increase from a year earlier but it was the smallest of those gains. Sales in the latest month were still 9.5% below the average for October since 1988.

The median price paid for homes in the six counties in October was $280,000, down 6.7% from a year earlier. In Orange County, the median was up 3.9%, and in San Diego County it edged up 0.5%.

The median price paid per square foot for resale single-family houses in October it was $170 for the six-county area, down 9.5% from a year earlier but up from a low of $147 in April 2009.

Resales of foreclosed homes in October accounted for about 41% of all resales of homes in the six counties. That was down from a high of nearly 57% in February.

DataQuick said sales have been helped in recent months by low mortgage rates and a federal tax credit for some home buyers. In addition, it pointed to an increase in “short sales,” in which the lender agrees to allow a sale for less than the mortgage balance due.

“The government is playing a huge role in stabilizing and, to some extent, reinvigorating the housing market,” DataQuick said in its monthly report. “The real question now is how well can the market perform next year as some of the government stimulus disappears.”

Source: WSJ