Home sales picking up

It may not seem that way, with a 30.6 percent drop in L.A. County sales last month compared with a year earlier. But the month-to-month numbers show considerable movement, according to the new Dataquick numbers. Among all of Socal - L.A., Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties - April sales were up 21.9 percent from the previous month. That's a huge number. The increases involve sales in the under-$500,000 range, which is where there have been the most foreclosures. Riverside County actually had a year-over-year increase in sales, the first time that’s happened in two years. "We continue to look for evidence of a sales bounce in the mid-priced and higher-end markets along the coast," says Marshall Prentice, president of DataQuick. To that point, prices continue to slide. In Los Angeles, the April median price was $435,000, down 19.4 percent from April, 2007 (though down only $5,000 from the previous month). Part of the problem continues to be a sharp dropoff in the number of sales financed with jumbo mortgages. Prior to August 2007, nearly 40 percent of Socal sales were financed with these types of loans; last month it was 15.1 percent.

APRIL HOME SALES (% change from April 2007)
Los Angeles 5,016 -30.6%
Orange 2,166 -19.2%
Riverside 3,186 6.7%
San Bernardino 1,667 -18.6%
San Diego 2,809 -18.2%
Ventura 771 -13.4%

APRIL HOME PRICES (% change from April 2007)
Los Angeles $435,000 -19.4%
Orange $500,000 -20.5%
Riverside $295,000 -27.9%
San Bernardino $265,000 -28.4%
San Diego $400,000 -18.4%
Ventura $445,000 -22.2%

Source: Dataquick