Southern California home prices and sales improve in November
The median home price rises 1.8%, to $285,000, from October. The number of houses sold is up 14.7% from the same month last year.
By Alejandro Lazo
December 16, 2009
Southern California 's real estate industry, decimated by the mortgage meltdown and housing bust, is stirring to life again -- even making hiring plans -- as home prices bounce back.
Data released Tuesday showed the Southland housing market gaining strength in the traditionally slow month of November. The median price paid for a Southern California home increased 1.8% in November from October, to $285,000, according to MDA DataQuick, a San Diego real estate research firm. It's the seventh consecutive month in which prices have improved or held steady.
Sales of new homes in Southern California also rose unexpectedly last month, and the percentage of foreclosures making up the total resale market continued to drop.
Some good news for residential developers came Tuesday. Sales of newly built homes in Southern California jumped unexpectedly in November, according to DataQuick, with 2,039 sold, the highest for any month so far this year.
The Irvine Co., responding to what it called pent-up demand, recently announced it would unveil 25 floor plans next year in some of its Irvine housing developments.
The total number of homes sold in November rose 14.7% from the same month last year, though it fell from the previous month, which is typical as the slower fall and winter seasons begin. Sales decreased 13.3% from October to 19,181 last month in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties, DataQuick said.
The recent improvement in home prices has been largely driven by first-time home buyers and investors snapping up deeply discounted foreclosed homes and other properties in distress. The number of foreclosure sales as a percentage of the entire resale market continued to drop in November, DataQuick said. Properties sold in November that had been repossessed by a bank in the previous 12 months constituted 39.1% of all resales in Southern California, down from 40.6% in October. Foreclosure sales peaked in February at 56.7% of the market.
Nevertheless, the average number of properties repossessed by banks on a daily basis in California continued to increase steadily, by 2.4%, in November compared with October, according to a report released Tuesday by Foreclosure Radar.com. The total number of foreclosures in the state scheduled for sale in November rose to 151,573. That was a 1.4% increase from October, and a 136% increase from November 2008.
