George S. May Business Blog

Housing prices in California stay put for November — First time in over 24 months

California homeowners should be able to breathe a bit of a sigh of relief with this news.

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Southern California house and condominium prices halted their slide for the first time in more than two years last month as federal tax credits and low mortgage rates increased sales, MDA DataQuick said.

The median price was $285,000 in November, little changed from a year earlier and up 1.8 percent from $280,000 in October, the San Diego-based research company said today in a statement. 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, which had been set to expire last month, and by mortgage rates at historic lows, MDA DataQuick said. The median price in Southern California still is being kept low by the sales of foreclosed homes, which accounted for 39 percent of all existing-home sales in the region last month.

“This market is still really lopsided,” John Walsh, MDA DataQuick’s president, said in the statement. “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.”

MDA DataQuick is a unit of Richmond, British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Ltd.MDA DataQuick compiles surveys using county records and supplies real-estate information to public agencies, lenders and title companies.

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