That may seem like a dumb question - we all know that it's the subprime mess and the credit crunch and the depreciation of homes, right? Well, yeah, at least in the Inland Empire and other mostly new-home areas, where you had folks buying way above their means. But what about the more established residential areas of L.A., especially closer to the water, where demand should remain pretty strong? That's what the folks from Dataquick are wondering about. Their numbers for February show a 45 percent decline in L.A. County sales from a year earlier and a drop of nearly 13 percent in the median home price - to $460,000. But are those declines at least partly the result of folks who have the financial ability to buy or sell yet choose to remain on the sidelines? What sales activity there was in February largely took place in the inland markets, "often in newer suburbs, where prices got pumped up artificially with the sort of crazy loans that no longer exist," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president. To give you an idea: Of the homes that resold in February, 33.5 percent had been foreclosed on at some point since January 2007. A year earlier the figure was 3.5 percent. Unfortunately, the problem-plagued areas are being lumped with the more established areas so that everyone is on edge - and it probably won't sort out until the overall credit situation improves, most likely this summer.

FEBRUARY HOME SALES (% change from February '07)
Los Angeles 3,468 -45.0%
Orange 1,471 -39.9%
Riverside 2,147 -29.8%
San Bernardino 1,242 -45.4%
San Diego 1,954 -31.7%
Ventura 495 -32.8%

FEBRUARY HOME PRICES (% change from February '07)
Los Angeles $460,000 -12.9%
Orange $520,000 -16.1%
Riverside $325,000 -20.7%
San Bernardino $290,000 -21.4%
San Diego $415,000 -13.5%
Ventura $445,000 -23.8%

Source: DataQuick Information Systems, DQNews.com