REAL ESTATE: Southland finishes 2012 on high note

Southern California closed 2012 with the strongest December for home sales in three years, a new report by San Diego-based DataQuick says.

For the Inland region, December was a mixed bag in that sales fell but prices rose. Across Southern California, 20,274 new and resale houses and condominiums sold in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Ventura counties, a 5.1 percent gain from 19,285 sales in November and a 5.3 percent increase over sales activity in December 2011.

Sales activity hasn’t been this high since December 2009. The sales level still pales in comparison to the high set in 2003 with 36,865 sales, but is substantially higher than the low of 13,240 sales recorded in 2007 when real estate lost its sizzle. Median home prices, climbing to $323,000, rose 19.6 percent from December 2011.

“The housing market had more to offer in 2012 than many anticipated,” John Walsh, DataQuick president said a statement. “A lot of markets not only found a price bottom as foreclosures waned, but they started to see their first meaningful gains in nearly two years.”

Inland figures were mixed; 3,248 homes and condos sold in Riverside County in December, 9.4 percent fewer than the year earlier. In San Bernardino County, the 2,135 home sales represented an 11.7 percent decline from December 2011 when 2,418 homes and condos sold.

Realtors in the hard-hit Inland area have blamed sales declines on dwindling inventory due to a slowdown in foreclosures, and on a percentage of homeowners who can’t budge because their houses are worth less than they owe.

That’s put upward pressure on price.

Median home sale prices rose 19.1 percent in Riverside County to $231,000 and climbed 20 percent in San Bernardino County to $180,000.

“We don’t have enough inventory, but we’re still very encouraged,” said April Bolin, a Realtor and manager of Westcoe Realtors Inc., of Riverside. “We expect this year to be great; we’re all feeling it and seeing it. We are seeing more and more standard sales, and more people tell us this is a good time to make a move.”

With fewer foreclosures coming into the marketplace, and banks expressing more willingness to do short-sales, Bolin predicted, “This is the year we will start to go back to some sort of normalcy.”

Across Southern California, the median price on home sales has been rising for 11 consecutive months, and has increased year-over-year for nine consecutive months. Foreclosure resale, properties taken back by the lender in the prior 12 months, accounted for 14.8 percent of the Southland resale market. That was down from 15.4 percent the month before and 32.4 percent a year earlier.

In February 2009, foreclosure resale activity represented 56.7 percent of the market.

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