Southern California Home Sales Rose 51%
Bloomberg reports: Southern California home sales rose 51 percent in December as a surge in foreclosures pushed prices of single-family houses and condominiums down from a year earlier, MDA DataQuick said.
A total of 19,926 new and existing houses and condos sold last month in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties, up from 13,240 a year earlier, the San Diego-based research company said today in a statement. The median home price in the region fell 35 percent to $278,000.
“The markets that were part of the frenzy, that’s what’s in trouble now,” MDA DataQuick analyst John Karevoll said in an interview.
Foreclosures, which often sell at steep discounts, lured buyers as President-Elect Barack Obama worked on plans to revive the housing market using the second half of the $700 billion Troubled-Asset Relief Program. Lenders including Bank of America Corp., and financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. benefited from the government’s initial distribution of bailout money as their mortgage-related assets plunged in value.
Foreclosed homes accounted for 56 percent of Southern California’s December sales, more than double the amount a year earlier, MDA DataQuick said.
Such transactions made up almost 70 percent of sales in Riverside County, where the median price plummeted 41 percent to $209,000. Sales jumped 77 percent to 4,435, MDA DataQuick said.
The median price for all of Southern California plunged as a smaller proportion of properties changed hands near the coast and more were sold inland in areas including Riverside and San Bernardino, where mortgage defaults have surged.
Sales Up Everywhere
“What we’re seeing now is an awful lot of activity in markets with distress, and we’re seeing very little activity in markets without much distress,” Karevoll said.
Home sales increased in each of the six Southern California counties MDA DataQuick tracks. San Bernardino led the region with an 89 percent gain. That county also had the biggest price drop: 43 percent to a median of $180,000.
Los Angeles County showed the smallest rise in sales, with the number of deals climbing 32 percent from a year earlier. The median price dropped 32 percent to $320,000.
Prices fell the least in San Diego County, where the median declined 30 percent to $300,000, the research company said.
The most active lenders to Southern California homebuyers in December were Bank of America, its Countrywide unit, and Wells Fargo & Co., MDA DataQuick said.
The data provider is a unit of Richmond, British Columbia- based MacDonald, Dettwiler anCheersd Associates Ltd. It compiles its surveys using county records and supplies real estate information to public agencies, lenders and title companies among other customers.
Source: bloomberg.com
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