Home sales are up!

Don't get too excited - they're only up 2 percent from October to November. Year-over-year, Socal sales fell 42 percent - the weakest November since the Dataquick folks started compiling housing statistics. The increase from October was mostly the result of an 11.5 percent jump in newly built homes (single-family resales were about even and condo resales fell 6 percent). Sales almost always decline between October and November, but clearance prices might be luring a few more people into the market. It's way too early to consider any of this a bottoming out; as Dataquick President Marshall Prentice points out, Novermber sales rose a bit back in 1994, only to slide back down again. The other not-so-great news is prices: L.A. County's median last month was $499,000, down 3.5 percent from a year earlier. That's not nearly as bad as places like Riverside (16.5 percent) and San Bernardino (13.2 percent), but up until a couple of months ago, the L.A. numbers were actually going up.

NOVEMBER SALES (% change from November 2006)
Los Angeles -46.0%
Orange -45.3%
Riverside -43.2%
San Bernardino -48.1%
San Diego -26.1%
Ventura -42.7%

NOVEMBER PRICES (median, % change from November 2006)
Los Angeles $499,000 -3.5%
Orange $582,750 -6.5%
Riverside $356,000 -16.5%
San Bernardino $330,000 -13.2%
San Diego $440,000 -9.7%
Ventura $521,250 -9.7%

Source: Dataquick