California existing home sales were down nearly 3% between March and April but up 5% from April 2010 on a seasonally adjusted basis, data from the California Association of Realtors shows.
There were 499,830 units sold in April on an annualized basis. It is the strongest year-over-year gain in the number of sales since August 2009, according to CAR chief economist Leslie Appleton-Young.
Median price statewide rose 2.5% between March and April, to $293,570 from $286,510. When compared with April 2010, the price fell over 4% from $293,570.
“An improving economy, coupled with the steady pace of distressed sales in the market and the typical seasonal pattern in the median home price, suggests the statewide median price has reached its low point for this year and is unlikely to hit the bottom reached in February 2009,” said CAR president Beth L. Peerce.
However, it is taking longer for a home to sell and the unsold inventory is growing. For April, the median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 53 days, up from 37.4 days in April 2010.
CAR's unsold inventory index, which measures the time expected to deplete the sales market at the current rate, for April was 5.4 months. It was 5.3 months in March and 4.9 months for April 2010.
