Southern California Median Home Prices Continue to Fall

Southern California house and condominium prices fell 35.8% in April on a Y/Y basis as foreclosures accounted for more than half of all sales, real estate information service MDA DataQuick said.

From DataQuick: A total of 20,514 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the six-county Southland last month. That was up 5.2 percent from 19,506 in March and up 31.4 percent from 15,615 a year ago..

Foreclosure resales – homes sold in April that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – accounted for 53.6 percent of all Southland resales last month. It was the seventh consecutive month in which post-foreclosure properties made up more than half of all resales.
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At the same time, the number of single-family houses that resold last month was at record or near-record-high levels for an April in many of the more affordable, foreclosure-heavy inland market.
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Across the Southland, the median price paid for all homes combined last month was $247,000, down 1.2 percent from $250,000 in March and down 35.8 percent from $385,000 a year ago. Last month’s median was the lowest since it was $242,000 in February 2002, and was 51.1 percent below the peak $505,000 median reached in spring and summer of 2007.

The drop in the median price overstates the decline in the value of the typical Southern California home because discounted foreclosure properties are dominating the market, MDA DataQuick said.

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