Despite the floundering financial markets, wavering consumer confidence and increasing jobless rate, Southern California home sales surged to higher than expected levels in October, a real estate information service reported Tuesday.

A total of 802 new and existing homes and condominiums closed escrow last month in Ventura County, a 49.1 percent jump from 538 sales for the same period a year ago, according to MDA DataQuick.

October was the fourth consecutive month that sales have increased on a year-over-year basis, after 33 straight months of declines.

While the uptick might appear staggering, the year-ago figure was a rock-bottom low for any October on record. Part of that can be attributed to buyers swooping up distressed properties last month as prices continued to fall.

Ventura County's median sales price was $375,000, down 2.6 percent from $385,000 in September, but off 29.9 percent from $535,000 a year ago. The median is the midpoint, where half the homes sell for more and half for less. The median's free-fall has been fueled by depreciation, slower high-end sales and a rising number of foreclosure resales, which tend to be in the low- to mid-cost price range, according to DataQuick.

Forty-seven percent of the existing homes and condominiums sold in the county were foreclosed on at some point in the past 12 months. That is up from 44 percent in September and 12.2 percent in October 2007.

Kay Wilson-Bolton, owner-broker of Century 21 Buena Vista in Santa Paula, said most of the transactions she's seeing are for distressed homes, usually in Oxnard.

She estimated that about 60 percent of the housing inventory countywide involves short sales or bank repossessions.

"Those are the homes being offered at the most affordable prices," she said. "Now we've got mortgage payments bumping up against rent payments."

Take a typical three-bedroom, two-bath home on the market for $280,000, Wilson-Bolton said. A monthly mortgage would cost about $1,700 — not including taxes and insurance — just a little bit more than what renters might pay.

Rising sales and falling prices were a trend seen in October throughout Southern California, where sales climbed to their highest level this year. It was the first time that October was a peak month for sales in any year in DataQuick's records. There were 21,532 sales across the six-county region, up 66.7 percent from 12,913 in October 2007.

The median price was $300,000, plunging 32.6 percent from $445,000 a year ago. It was the lowest median since April 2003.

"You could easily imagine a meaningful decline in sales last month, given the seasonal norm and the dire financial news that potential buyers had to ponder in September," said John Walsh, DataQuick president. "But we have yet to see any big, sudden drop in the number of transactions closing escrow. It tells us there were a lot of serious buyers in the market during late summer and early fall — buyers who consider housing a relatively good buy or investment."

But Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project, believes that most of those homes were purchased by investors. With job losses increasing, consumers are putting off major purchases.

"This is not a sign that consumers got gung-ho and are spending money," he said. "Consumers are not buying cars, they're not buying houses; they're just not buying."

Still, people want homes and they can't pass up a bargain, said Dennis Torres, executive director of real estate operations at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.

"Yes, more and more people are being laid off, and those people can't afford to buy a house," Torres said. "But the majority of people are working."

Torres believes that now is a better time for traditional home buyers, not investors, and that investors should wait until values begin to appreciate. He sees buying a home now — to live in — as a defense against inflation.

"If you're under 40, I would say buy," he said. "If my gut feeling is right and we're going to have rampant inflation, your home price values will start climbing again because the dollar is going to be worth less."

Economists predict that foreclosures will continue to put downward pressure on prices.

"If I were a betting man, I would definitely say (Ventura County's) median will fall to at least $350,000, maybe $325,000," he said, and $250,000 in Southern California, before prices begin to flatten and eventually appreciate around 2015.

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