Southern California Home Sales for August 2012

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According to DQ News, Southern California home sale rose to a six year high for the month of August.  A total of 22.438 new and resale homes sold in Southern California.  That’s up 9% from July 2012 and up 14.2% from August 2011.

Last month’s $309,000 median price was up 1.0 from July and up 10.8% from same month last year.

Demand is up partially due to historic low mortgage rate, but also due to further shift from distressed lower priced properties to higher priced properties in the coastal areas.

“August was the strongest month for home sales so far this year, and the strongest for an August in six years. That’s really saying something given the drop in low-end sales, especially foreclosure resales. Much of the pickup in activity reflects a continuation of trends we’ve seen for months, like the unleashing of pent-up demand in move-up markets and high levels of cash and investor buying. It will be interesting to see at what point cash purchases, which still account for close to a third of all sales, start to fade. In the meantime, strong seasonal forces should be kicking in now. Absent an unusual surge in demand this fall, sales will taper off over the next few months,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president.”

Properties ranked as distressed, which is either foreclosures or short sales represented 36.8% of total sales in August.  This is the lowest since January 2008.

Foreclosures were 19.2% of total sales down from 20.7 in July and short sales were 17.6%, down from 18.7% in July.

One negative is that credit conditions still remain very tight in spite of the super low interest rates.

No sales chart this month as the chart shown in July’s.  I’ll post it if DQNews updates it.

http://dqnews.com/Articles/2012/News/California/Southern-CA/RRSCA120913.aspx