by Calculated Risk on 3/13/2008 02:06:00 PM

From DataQuick: Southland home sales still ultra-low; median price slips again

Southern California home sales limped along last month at the slowest pace ever for a February, the result of a market crippled by uncertainty and credit constraints. The median sale price dropped by a record 17.6 percent from a year ago, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 10,777 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in February. That was up 8 percent from 9,983 the previous month but down 39 percent from 17,680 in February last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Last month's sales total was the second-lowest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The prior month's total of 9,983 was the lowest ever. Since September, sales each month have been a record low for that particular month.

Of the homes that resold in February, about one-third, 33.5 percent, had been foreclosed on at some point since January 2007. A year earlier the figure was 3.5 percent. At the county level, the percent of homes resold in February that had been foreclosed on since January 2007 ranged from 25.3 percent in Orange County to 48.1 percent in Riverside County.

"Sales remained extraordinarily low, and a significant portion of what did sell was in areas beset by foreclosure activity. That's where sellers are the most motivated and price cuts are largest. Mainly it's in the inland markets, often in newer suburbs, where prices got pumped up artificially with the sort of crazy loans that no longer exist," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president.
...
The median price paid for a Southland home was $408,000 last month, the lowest since $402,500 in October 2004. Last month's median was down 1.7 percent from January's $415,000, and down a record 17.6 percent from $495,000 in February 2007.

Last month's median fell 19.2 percent shy of the $505,000 peak reached last spring and summer. ...

Foreclosure activity is at record levels...

If it wasn't for foreclosures, the sales number would really be awful.