Southern California Home Prices Rise In July As Sales Drop

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The median price of a home in Los Angeles County rose by 8.5 percent in July, compared with the same month a year ago, while the number of homes sold dropped by 12.6 percent, a real estate information service announced today.

According to CoreLogic, the median price of a Los Angeles County home was $531,500 last month, up from $490,000 in July 2015. A total of 7,285 homes were sold in the county, down from 8,333 during the same month the previous year.

In Orange County, the median price was $640,000 last month, up 4.1 percent from $615,000 in July 2015. The number of homes sold dropped by 10.4 percent, from 3,685 in July 2015 to 3,301 last month.

A total of 21,705 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, according to CoreLogic. That was down 11.3 percent from 24,472 in June and down 10.7 percent from 24,317 in July 2015.

The median price of a Southern California home was $465,000 in July, the same as June but up 6.2 percent from $438,000 in July 2015.

"The nearly 11 percent year-over-year drop in Southern California's July home sales marked the largest annual decline for any month in almost two years, while the 11 percent June-to-July sales decrease was the largest in five years," said Andrew LePage, a research analyst for CoreLogic. "However, there's a caveat involving a quirk of the calendar in that this July had 20 business days for transactions to be recorded in the public record compared with 22 business days in both June 2016 and July 2015.

"The last time sales dropped sharply, about 12 percent, between June and July was in 2011, which was also the last time the month of July had only 20 business days for recordings. The average number of home sale transactions recorded daily in July 2016 was only about 2 percent lower than in both June 2016 and July 2015."

Last week, the median single-family home price rose above $1 million in San Jose -- a first in any U.S. city, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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