California backlog of unsold homes drops as July home sales rise, Realtors group reports

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California’s backlog of unsold homes declined in July as sales increased, the California Assn. of Realtors said today.

The group’s Unsold Inventory Index for existing, single-family detached homes in July stood at 3.9 months, indicating the amount of time needed to unload the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate, the Realtors group said in its monthly sales and price report. A year earlier the index was 6.9 months.

The median amount of time it took to sell a house was 39.9 days, down from 47.8 days for the same period last year, the report said.

A total of 553,910 existing homes, at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, closed escrow in July, the report said. Statewide, home resale rates were up 8.1% from June and 12% from a year earlier, it said.

The Realtors group also reported a median sales price in California of $285,480 for existing homes sold last month, up 3.9% from June but down 19.6% from July 2008.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles