The median price of single-family homes in California dropped 39 percent year-over-year in March, while the sales pace soared 63.8 percent, the statewide Realtor group reported.
The California Association of Realtors also reported that the single-family median price rose 2.2 percent from February 2009 to March 2009 while the monthly sales pace slid 16 percent.
By comparison, the National Association of Realtors reported a 12.4 median price drop for all resale home types and a 7.1 percent drop in the sales pace of previously owned homes in March compared to the same month last year (see Inman News).
Regionally, the state’s Monterey region suffered the biggest year-over-year hit in single-family resale median price (-56 percent) from March 2008 to March 2009, followed by the Santa Barbara County region (-50.8 percent) and the Monterey County Region (-49.5 percent).
The slightest year-over-year price drop was in the Northern California region, (-20.8 percent), followed by the San Luis Obispo Region (-23 percent) and the Orange County region (-24.9 percent).
The Monterey County region saw an explosion in sales of single-family resale homes in March compared to the same month last year — up 248.7 percent — followed by the High Desert region (up 172.7 percent) and the Monterey region (up 168.1 percent). …CONTINUED
The Santa Barbara South Coast region saw a 32.9 percent decline in sales — it was the only decline among the 19 regions tracked by the California Realtor group. The slightest sales rise was in the Santa Barbara County region (3 percent), followed by the Northern California region (8.7 percent).
Statewide, it took a median 48.3 days to sell a single-family resale home in March 2009, down from 56.8 days in March 2008, the Realtor group reported.
And the group’s Unsold Inventory Index for single-family resale homes was five months in March 2009, compared with 12.2 months in March 2008 — the index is a gauge of how long it would take to exhaust the inventory of for-sale homes at the monthly sales pace.
A separate set of data, which tracks median-price changes for all housing types in the state, found that the median price rose in only three of 345 California cities and communities tracked in March 2009 compared to March 2008.
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