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Home sales up in April, down from a year ago
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More from BusinessAs homebuyers inched off the sidelines to grab distressed properties, home sales in April edged up from the previous month, but were still off substantially from a year ago.
There were 771 new and existing homes and condominiums sold last month in Ventura County, a 13.4 percent drop from 890 homes sold last year, DataQuick Information Systems reported today. That's up significantly from 549 sales in March.
The median price of homes sold also bumped up slightly, from $430,000 in March to $445,000 in April. Last month's median price was a 22.2 percent decline from $572,000 in April 2007.
The median is the midpoint, where half the homes sold for more and half for less.
Across Southern California's six counties, sales surged to the highest level since August as a total of 15,615 new and existing homes and condos sold last month, DataQuick reported. That was up 21.9 percent from 12,808 in March, but down 19 percent from 19,269 sales a year ago. It was still the slowest April since 1995, and the second-lowest April on record, according to DataQuick.
Of the existing homes that sold in April, 37.5 percent had been foreclosed on in the past 12 months.
"Quite a few more buyers stepped off the sidelines last month to snap up homes at substantial discounts relative to the market's short-lived peak," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president, in a statement. "It's no surprise, given the magnitude of the price declines in inland areas and the fact sales have been so amazingly low for so long."
The median price paid for a Southern California home was $385,000 last month, unchanged from March, according to DataQuick.
"We continue to look for evidence of a sales bounce in the mid-priced and higher-end markets along the coast," Prentice said. "If the higher conforming loan limits are making a difference in those areas, it's certainly not a large one, or least not as of the end of April."
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Posted by solvingadream on May 19, 2008 at 1:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It only took a $130,000 drop to miss last years sales by 13%. Another $130,000 and we might see the numbers getting better!
Posted by SayItLikeItIs on May 21, 2008 at 4:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I wonder what SmashyCrashy has to say about these news.
Posted by SmashyCrashy on May 25, 2008 at 2:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
SayItLikeItIs,
The Star keeps on having multiple articles on housing not in the housing section. I commented over here:
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news...
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