Home sales drop, prices continue to climb in Bay Area

The number of houses and condominium units sold in the San Francisco Bay Area fell 19% last month to the lowest level in 12 years even as sale prices in the region set a record, DataQuick Information Systems said Thursday.

A total of 8,080 new and existing single-family houses and condominiums were sold in San Francisco, Napa, Contra Costa and six other Northern California counties last month, down from 9,935 a year earlier, La Jolla-based DataQuick said. Last month’s sales count was the lowest for a May since 1995, when 6,615 homes were sold.

Even with the drop-off in sales, the median price for a home in the Bay Area increased, in part because sales of lower-cost houses and condominiums have dropped more than sales in higher-priced categories, DataQuick said. It was the fourth month in a row that the Bay Area’s median price increased.

“The high end is doing relatively well,” DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said.

The median price last month rose 3.4% from a year earlier to $660,000, topping the previous record of $659,000 set in April.