The California Association of Realtors on Monday said last month’s median price of an existing home in Los Angeles County jumped nearly 30 percent from last year, with the inventory of unsold homes at its lowest level in eight years. CAR said the median price for an existing, single-family detached home in the county in May was $365,990, compared with $282,930 a year earlier. The association’s index of unsold inventory, which expresses the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market, stood at 2.5 months, compared with 3.6 months a year earlier. The median amount of time it took to sell a home plunged from 51 days to 28 days. Selma Hepp, the association’s senior economist, said the housing market in California has been strongest in the San Francisco Bay area, but Southern California also is seeing significant improvement. “Supply is very tight, putting pressure on prices,” said Hepp, noting that foreign buyers as well as private investment firms also have been snapping up properties. “The market is benefitting from few distressed sales, and more sales where the owner has some equity in the property.”
