Home Sales Continue Upward Trend

Southern California’s late summer and early fall surge in home sales continued into October as buyers took advantage of attractive mortgage interest rates and declining home prices, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 15,421 new and used houses and condos were sold in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside counties last month. Although down 5.7% from September’s 16,358, it was up 12.5% from 13,706 for October a year ago, the fourth month in a row that year-over-year sales were ahead of last year’s, according to Dataquick Information Systems of La Jolla.

So far this year 140,163 new and resale homes have been bought, up 1.7% from 137,855 for the same period last year.