Riverside/San Bern Housing Sales Drop 47 Percent

The California Association of Realtors reported this week that the median price of a home in Los Angeles hit $571,110 last month, up 2.6 percent from the same period in 2006. Sales, however, were off by 4.6 percent from last year in LA.

Meanwhile, the state of California's sales volume, according to CAR, dropped by more than 20 percent from March '06, while the median price continued to tick upward at a whopping $580,090 (up 3.2 percent from March '06).

The numbers from DataQuick Real Estate News are a bit more grim. Unlike CAR, DQ calculates new and resale houses and condos together. In doing so, DQ found that sales volume statewide for March '07 was down 31.0 percent from March '06, a difference of 26,447 housing units.

The most significant decline in sales in the state, according to the data reported by CAR, appears to have been in Riverside/San Bernardino where volume dropped by 47.6 percent from March '06 to March '07. The median price for a home there was $394,370 in March '07, down from $401,100 in March '06.

C.A.R. President Colleen Badagliacco said in a news release:

“March sales fell below the levels of recent months in reaction to an uptick in mortgage rates earlier this year along with tighter underwriting standards. The year-to-year decline in March was larger than in recent months in part because sales in March 2006 were the strongest in all of last year,” said C.A.R. President Colleen Badagliacco. “Moreover, recent news regarding foreclosures and the subprime situation had an adverse impact on the market psychology of many buyers, leading some to delay their home-purchase decisions.”

— TJ Sullivan in LA