Home sales shot up in April to the highest level since August, but it's too early to tell if that signals a turnaround, economists said Monday.

There were 771 new and existing homes and condos sold last month in Ventura County, a 13.4 percent drop from 890 homes sold last year, DataQuick Information Systems reported Monday. That was up a whopping 40 percent from 549 transactions recorded in March.

For the first time since December, the median price of homes sold also bumped up slightly, from $430,000 in March to $445,000 in April, but declined 22.2 percent from $572,000 a year ago.

The median is the midpoint, where half the homes sold for more and half for less.

Gary Painter, the director of research with the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said it's premature to say whether the market is at a turning point.

"It's very easy, when you're in a market like this one, to have little blips here and there," Painter said.

But the big jump in sales parallels what Brian Troop is seeing. In April, Troop Real Estate doubled its transactions from March, he said.

"We're seeing more activity than we've seen in probably two years, as far as people looking. And many of these buyers are going forward with their purchases," Troop said.

He says the company is selling properties twice as fast as it is listing them, which means inventory is "shrinking dramatically." Troop expects a reduction in inventory to bring prices back up sometime next year.

Cindy Richmond, a Realtor with Premier Options in Camarillo, is upbeat about the market.

This April was much better than last, which she said was "dead and stagnant." She's had two closings this year, and says business has been up since January. Richmond also said there seems to be more loan programs available than a year ago.

Transactions typically spike from January to March, but don't always go up in April, said Andrew LePage, a DataQuick analyst. On average, sales from March to April have increased 1.2 percent in Southern California since 1988, he said. Ventura County's 40 percent uptick is unusual, he added.

Areas slammed by foreclosures and deep discounting have shown the most gains in sales, as buyers rush to grab up deals, LePage said. In Ventura County, 30.7 percent of the homes sold last month were foreclosures.

"There is a blue-light special taking effect," he said.

In Ventura County, LePage said, areas in Oxnard and Ventura showed the biggest year-over-year increase in resale transactions.

It was still the second-lowest April since 1995, when 692 homes were sold, according to DataQuick's records, which date back to 1988.

Still, "It's a pleasant surprise," said Bill Watkins, executive director of UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project.

Even though there was just a small increase in price — and the jump in transactions may simply reflect the number of distressed sales and account for some seasonality — it's a nice change from the past several months, Watkins said.

"It's not that big a deal, but in a market like this, you take what you can get," Watkins said.

Before people start to celebrate a rebound, they should know that it takes at least three consecutive months to establish a trend, said Mark Schniepp, director of the California Economic Forecast Project in Goleta.

"Give it another month," Schniepp said. "While sales are not falling like a rock anymore, prices are not showing any signs of a rebound," Schniepp said.

The median price, not the volume of transactions, weighs heavier on people's perceptions, and wields more influence on how buyers feel, he said.

Though the numbers still look bleak on paper, Schniepp says the market actually hit the bottom in September or October in terms of transactions. Once seasonally adjusted, transactions have been rising moderately since December, he said.

Economists had been optimistic that raising the conforming loan limit in Ventura County would allow more financing at the lower conforming rates, but that hasn't happened, Schniepp said.

In March, he downgraded his projections, estimating that prices for this year would drop 12 to 15 percent from 2007. That forecast relies on the housing market not getting any worse.

He also predicts a little bump in sales, which he says could easily happen if rates on new jumbo conforming loans start to converge with traditional conforming loans in the next couple of months. Interest rates on higher-priced homes would continue to fall, creating more affordability in the market, Schniepp said.

Painter predicts prices will remain flat "for a while," though there will be little ups and downs as the large supply of inventory is worked through.

There have been fewer homes entering foreclosure in Southern California, Painter said. But he expects foreclosure properties to represent a significant portion of sales in the coming months.

Of the existing homes that sold in April across Southern California, 37.5 percent had been foreclosed on in the past 12 months.

Across the Southern California region, 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 in April 2007.

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