Calif. home prices fall 32% from April ’07 levels

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There is another ugly headline, but also a hint of recovery in the new monthly sales statistics from the California Association of Realtors.

Ugly headline: Median sales prices in the state plummeted 32% from year-ago levels in April. From the Silicon Valley Business Journal: ‘The median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during April was $403,870, a 32 percent decrease from the revised $594,110 median for April 2007, C.A.R. reported. The April 2008 median price fell 2.6 percent compared with March’s revised $414,640 median price.’

If you are scoring at home, that’s a decline of $190,000 in a year, or $3,600 per week. I understand the median price is an imperfect measure, and doesn’t indicate that individual homes lost that much value. Still, that is Tom Petty stuff, my friend, because that is free-falling (It’s Friday, a bonus link).

Now the glimmer of recovery: Sales in April actually increased 2.5% over year-ago levels, breaking a 30-month streak of declines, the CAR reported.

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg News