Pace of Home Sales Slows in the Southland

The pace of Southern California home sales slowed last month as the rate of price appreciation eased slightly throughout much of the region, data released Monday showed.

A total of 21,680 new and resale homes were sold in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties in January. That was a 28.5% decline from December’s 30,317, and a 4.9% drop from 22,652 in January 2004, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Even San Bernardino County, where home sales have been outpacing the rest of the Southland, reported a flat month, with 2,940 residences closing escrow, about the same as January 2004 and January 2003.

Meanwhile, the median home price in Southern California -- the point at which half of all properties sold for more, half for less -- appears to be flattening out.

The median price paid for a home in the six-county region rose 21% last month to $415,000, the lowest year-over-year increase since February 2004, according to DataQuick, whose data are seasonally unadjusted and based on all residential property transactions that close during the period.

January’s median price was down 2.1% from December’s median of $424,000.

DataQuick President Marshall Prentice warned that statistics compiled in January and February were “notoriously bad for forecasting” because they typically reflected low-activity months.

Still, last month’s data seem to be “a continuation of trends that were emerging late last year,” he said.

“Sales are strong, but not at a peak, and price increases are slowing down especially in the markets that took off first back in 1998 and 1999.”

Indeed, San Bernardino and Riverside counties -- two areas that were late to the party -- continued to experience the highest rates of price appreciation. In January, the median price for all homes in the Inland Empire rose 31.4% year-over-year, compared with 18.7% in the rest of Southern California.

“There’s still a lot of catching up going on in the Inland Empire,” DataQuick chief analyst John Karevoll said.

Elsewhere, San Diego County’s median price rose 20.7% year-over-year to $478,000 but was down 2.6% from December, while sales fell 6.8% to 3,324 compared with a year earlier. In Ventura County, the median price rose 19% year-over-year to $512,000 and was down 2% from December, as sales declined 8.4% to 929.

Los Angeles and Orange counties’ data were reported last week.

L.A.’s median price rose 17.6% year-over-year to $414,000 and Orange County’s median gained 18.7% to $534,000.

Sales in both counties declined 5%.