LA County median home price ties an all-time high

Home prices in Los Angeles County climbed up again in April, according to a new report from CoreLogic. The real estate market tracker finds that the median sale price of homes reached $550,000 last month, tying an all-time high set in August of 2007—immediately before the subprime mortgage crisis sent home values into a tailspin.
CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage says the high prices are probably due to a strong economy and relatively low inventory to supply the demand of buyers looking to take advantage of interest rates that are expected to rise again as soon as next month.
In Orange and San Diego Counties, where median sale prices rose to $675,000 and $525,000, respectively, homes have never been as expensive as they were in April.
With prices as high as they are, it might not be surprising that the total number of sales across Southern California dropped 8.4 percent since March. In LA County, sales were down even more—12.6 percent—from the month before.
But LePage notes that March had three more business days than April, allowing significantly more time for deals to close. Factoring in that discrepancy, sales were just about equal.
Not surprisingly, sales of high-priced homes are continuing to become more common across Southern California. Sales of $800,000 or higher have shot up 7.1 percent since last year, while sales of homes over $1 million ticked up 3.4 percent. Sales below $500,000, on the other hand, dove 11.7 percent in the same time period.
While prices region-wide have reached or are approaching pre-recession levels, a Trulia report released earlier this month noted that homes in many neighborhoods have been slower to reach their 2007 values.
Article by Curbed. ​