Orange County, Calif., may be on the verge of seeing a gain in home sales for the first time in more than a year, new CoreLogic figures show.
But the gain is due more to the length of the housing slump than to a sharp improvement in the local housing market.
CoreLogic Sept. 20 that 3,192 Orange County homes changed hands in the 22 business days ending Aug. 26, the latest in the data firm's weekly series of rolling housing numbers. That's up 0.1% from the same period in August 2018.
CoreLogic plans to release final numbers for all of August next week. If the trend holds for the full month, it will be the first gain in a year, following 12 consecutive months of sales drops.
The median price of an Orange County home, or price at the midpoint of all sales, fell 2.3% during the 22-day period ending Aug. 26, dropping to $715,000.
Sales have been down off and on in Orange County since the fall of 2017, with year-over-year drops occurring in 19 of the past 22 months. Last month's sales tally was competing with already-depressed numbers in August 2018. Orange County home sales still pale compared to August 2017, when 121 more homes sold than in the latest 22-day period. (Most months have from 19 to 22 business days.)
Nonetheless, home sales have picked up in Southern California and the nation as a whole following a sharp drop in mortgage rates over the past 10 months. The National Association of Realtors reported this week U.S. house sales increased 2.6% in August from a year before, the second straight month of year-over-year sales gains. Southern California home sales increased for the first time in a year in July, rising 3.7% year over year.
Falling mortgage rates help home sales by boosting a home shopper's buying power. According to Freddie Mac, the average rate for a
