Housing Prices

California home sales rose sharply last month, but the median price plummeted 38% from a year ago as bargain hunters scooped up foreclosure properties, MDA DataQuick reported. The state's median home price dropped to $249,000 last month from $402,000 in December 2007, DataQuick said. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more and half sold for less. The La Jolla tracking service said 37,836 houses and condos were sold in California last month, up 18% from November and 48% from December 2007.

One out of five U.S. mortgage holders is now underwater, according to First American CoreLogic's latest review of 45 million mortgages in its database. The study covers the fourth quarter of 2008, during which the percentage of mortgage holders owing more than their properties are worth climbed to 20%, two percentage points higher than the 18% rate the previous quarter. In the Los Angeles area, 307,153 -- or about 23% -- of mortgage holders were upside down. California's 30% rate of negative equity places it in a tie for fifth place with Florida.

California home prices fell 41% last month from a year earlier, more than double the U.S. decline, as surging foreclosures drove down values, the California Assn. of Realtors said. The median price for an existing, single-family detached home in California sank to $247,590 in February from $418,260 a year earlier, the group said. The U.S. median price fell 16% during the same period, the second-biggest drop on record, according to the National Assn. of Realtors.

This chart, which continues on the next page, lists median prices in thousands of dollars for resales of single-family houses and condos. Percentage changes are a year-over-year comparison for the reporting month. The price per square foot in the far-right column includes only single-family home sales and does not include attached garages. Prices, provided by MDA DataQuick in La Jolla, are drawn from official records and are determined on the basis of the documentary transfer tax, when paid in full.

Mirroring the laggardly market of a year ago, sales of single-family homes in the San Fernando Valley remained nearly static relative to last year, and prices remained stable. A total of 936 Valley homes closed escrow in July, compared with 941 sold in July of 1995, according to the San Fernando Valley Assn. of Realtors. The numbers stayed true to the trends of the last several months, in which sales remained steady, or showed at most faint signs of increasing.

Orange County housing prices are a little softer this year than economists at Chapman University anticipated when they prepared their 1996 forecast six months ago. In a midyear update Thursday, university President James L. Doti--a pioneer in the field of regional economic predictions--said that a first-half slump in home prices will all but offset a small gain expected in the last six months of the year.

Southern California home sales continued to surge ahead in May as buyers tried to stay ahead of rising mortgage rates, figures released Thursday show. Sales of existing and new homes in May totaled 21,471, up 32.6% from depressed year-ago levels, the strongest showing for the month since 1990, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla-based real estate services firm. May's strong results were in line with a recent string of robust monthly sales reports.

January home sales increased 22.6% from the same month last year, but the median price fell 4.1% to $186,000. Foreclosures jumped 45.2% from 992 to 1,440. Sales of new and existing homes by ZIP code, median price and number entering foreclosure. (Main Story. A1): *--* Percent Median Percent Highest Community ZIP Sales change price change price Aliso Viejo 92656 54 -34.9% $172,000 -7.0% $244,000 Anaheim 92801 18 -21.7% $130,000 -3.7% $178,000 Anaheim 92802 23 187.5% $155,000 0.

Orange County housing sales jumped 22.6% last month, the biggest increase in 18 months, but the good news was tempered with bad: Prices slid to their lowest levels in more than seven years. The continuing price drop was fueled by a record 45.2% increase in foreclosures last month from the preceding January, according to figures released Monday by Dataquick Information Services, a real estate data firm.