Southern California home sales edge up in November

Southern California home sales rose slightly in November compared with the same month last year, but prices were nearly 7% higher, a real estate data firm reported Wednesday.

It was the 10th consecutive month that home sales rose on a year-over-year basis, but last month’s gain of 2.4% was the third smallest over that period, according to CoreLogic.

Last month, 16,122 new and existing homes and condominiums were sold, a decrease of 19.1% from October.

The median home price in November for the six counties of Southern California was $438,000, a 6.8% increase from the same month a year ago, and 0.7% higher than October’s numbers.

“Even though sales were still slightly higher last month than in November 2014, November 2015 was one of the slowest Novembers for Southern California home sales in the past quarter-century,” Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic, said in a statement. “It’s normal for activity to drop between October and November, but the 19% decline between the two months this year was roughly double the typical decrease.”

The average for November home sales is 21,155, which accounts for sales back to 1988, when CoreLogic began collecting data.

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