Southern California Home Sales, Prices Up in November

Southern California’s housing market continued its step-by-step climb up from the January-February bottom as both sales and prices saw gains last month, a real estate information service MDA DataQuick of San Diego reported.

A total of 19,181 new and resale homes sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month. That was down 13.3 percent from October’s 22,132, and up 14.7% from 16,720 for November 2008, MDA DataQuick said.

“This market is still really lopsided. Foreclosures and short sales are huge factors. There’s still not a lot of discretionary buying and selling outside the more affordable markets. Anybody who can sit tight is doing just that. The market won’t fully rebalance itself until financing becomes available for the higher price ranges,” said John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president.

The median home price was $285,000 in November, little changed from a year earlier and up 1.8% from $280,000 in October. Last month was the first time since September 2007 that the median didn’t drop from a year earlier in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.

Home sales and prices in Southern California were helped by the extension and expansion of the tax credit for first-time buyers, and historic low mortgage rates.

“Obviously, there’s a lot going on behind the numbers, but at the end of the day, the main thing it signals is that prices have firmed in a lot of areas,” DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said.

“I just had two clients call today and say they were thinking about putting their homes on the market in 2010. They think they see good stabilizing and more increase in values. We’ll see, hopefully, if that’ll be the case. We’re seeing a more normal market, which is always nice,” Erik Weichelt, Weichert Realtors Elite and president of the San Diego Association of Realtors.

Sales Volume			Median Price
All homes	Nov-08	Nov-09	%Chng	Nov-08	Nov-09	%Chng
Los Angeles	5,037	6,257	24.2%	$340,000	$329,000	-3.2%
Orange	2,177	2,528	16.1%	$400,000	$432,250	8.1%
Riverside	3,719	3,745	0.7%	$220,000	$200,000	-9.1%
San Bernardino	2,385	2,751	15.3%	$185,250	$160,000	-13.6%
San Diego	2,673	3,148	17.8%	$305,000	$325,000	6.6%
Ventura	729	752	3.2%	$355,000	$365,000	2.8%
SoCal	16,720	19,181	14.7%	$285,000	$285,000	0.0%

Soure: DataQuick Information Systems

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