Home sale numbers in Northern and Southern California are relatively stable but it does not appear they are positioned for any major gains, recent statistics from DataQuick suggest.
In total in Southern California, 16,884 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in November, up 0.3% from October and 4.2% from November 2010, according to the La Jolla, Calif.-based real estate information service.
The median price paid for all new and resale Southland houses and condos sold was $275,000, up 1.9% from $270,000 in October but down 4.2% from $287,000 in November 2010.
A total of 6,317 new and resale houses and condos sold in the nine-county Bay Area in Northern California during November. That was down 2% from 6,444 in October, and up 3.4% from 6,111 in November 2010, according to DataQuick.
The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Bay Area during the period was $363,500. That was up 3.9% from $350,000 in October, and down 4.3% from $380,000 in November 2010. The median has declined on a year-over-year basis for the last 14 months.
In addition to the limited availability of credit continues among the things that hold housing market recovery in general back, in areas like Northern and Southern California in particular there also concerns about overbuilding in areas further away from the coast, DataQuick president John Walsh said in an interview.
In Northern California, for example, “the peninsula is not significantly overbuilt” but areas further from the water are, he said. In Southern California areas like the Inland Empire around Riverside also continue to suffer from overbuilding that occurred during the housing market's boom between 2005 and 2007 that preceded its recent, inordinate bust.
