Home Sales: The Balloon Is Still Leaking

November 20, 2007 by Redfin Blogger

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This article in the L.A. Times reports that home prices hit 2005 levels last month.

The median price last month [in Southern California] was $444,000, the lowest since April 2005, according to DataQuick Information Systems. That’s a 3.9% drop from September and an 8% decline from October 2006. The number of homes sold, meanwhile, slipped to a 20-year low.

The median price of a home in L.A. County fell to $500,000, a 3.8% drop from a year earlier. But other counties fared worse. The median fell 15.1% in Riverside County, 8.2% in Orange County and 6.1% in San Diego County.

For sales to pick up, people need to be able to obtain conventional loans (under $417,000), according to economist G.U. Kreuger of IHP Capital Partners.

Current price declines are moving the market in that direction, he said. “Riverside is already there, San Bernardino is there, San Diego is closer, all of Southern California is closer,” he said.

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