California home-sales rate outpaces '08

The sales pace for previously owned single-family homes in California soared 83 percent year-over-year in February while the median price plunged 40.8 percent, the California Association of Realtors reported this week.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales dipped 0.8 percent and the median price fell 2.3 percent in February compared to the previous month. The sales rate is a projection of a monthly total over a 12-month period, adjusted to account for typical seasonal fluctuations in sales activity.

Regionally, the statewide Realtor group reported that sales climbed 203.1 percent year-over-year in February in the High Desert region -- the highest among the 19 regions tracked. The Santa Barbara South Coast region was the only region with a sales-rate decline (-9.4 percent) during that period.

The median single-family resale home price dropped most in the Monterey region (-61.1 percent) and least in the Northern California region (-22.3 percent) year-over-year in February.

The statewide median single-family resale home price was $247,590 in February 2009, down from $418,260 in February 2008. And in February the state was on a pace for 620,410 annual single-family home sales.

The Realtor group's Unsold Inventory Index for resale homes was 6.5 months in February, compared with 15.3 months in February 2008 -- this index indicates the amount of time it would take to deplete the supply of for-sale homes at that month's sales pace.

It took a median 51.5 days to sell a single-family resale home in February, compared with 69.3 days in the same month last year

A separate statewide report -- that tracks median price changes for new and resale condos and single-family homes in more than 300 California cities, city areas and counties in California -- found that the largest year-over-year decline in February was in Richmond (-77.5 percent), followed by Tarzana (-67.6 percent) and Desert Hot Springs (-66 percent). ...CONTINUED

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