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Home Sales, Foreclosures Rise

The month of March brought a familiar seasonal surge in Southern California home sales – but it also saw a sharp increase in foreclosures in L.A. County, according to two reports released on Thursday. Sales in the six-county region rose 43.6 percent over February to 19,603 homes, typical for this time of year as buyers get more active. The figure represents a 44 percent jump over February and an 11 percent increase over a year earlier, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic DataQuick in Irvine. In L.A. County, the number of homes sold hit 6,653, an increase of 12.5 percent over a year earlier. That year-over-year increase is significant, given that it has happened only rarely over the 12 months, said Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic analyst, in a statement. The median price in the county hit $476,500, up 9.5 percent from March of last year, and the highest figure in more than seven years. The high median price reflects a market shift in which mid- to high-end transactions accounted for a higher share of overall sales, LePage said. Southern California homes that sold for $500,000 or more rose by 14.4 percent in March compared to a year earlier and accounted for about 38 percent of all sales in the month – the highest level since December 2007. Also in March, a total of 3,050 homes were in foreclosure across the county, or one in every 1,132 homes. That was up 11 percent from the prior month, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine real estate data firm. In the greater Valley, Palmdale again topped the list with the most foreclosures: one out of every 392 homes. The other major Antelope Valley city of Lancaster also continued to struggle, with one out of every 480 homes in foreclosure. Among Valley communities with few foreclosures were Sun Valley, with one in every 1,418 homes; Studio City, with one in every 1,905; and Burbank, with one in every 2,016.

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