Home sales, prices rise in Bay Area

The median sale price of San Francisco Bay Area homes jumped in May and the overall number of homes sold in the region also rose, MDA DataQuick reported Thursday.

According to the real estate information service:

It was the second month in a row that the median increased, and the ninth that overall sales went up.

The median price paid for homes in the Bay Area was $341,500, up 12.3% from $304,000 this April but down 33.9% from $517,000 in May of last year.

The price increase was due in part to a small hike in home sales financed with loans for $417,000 and higher, known as jumbo mortgages. Jumbo loans made up 25.5% of the region’s home sales last month. Two years earlier, such mortgages accounted for more than 60%.

Sales of existing single-family homes fetching $800,000 or more rose to 13.2% of all Bay Area house resales, up from 9.8% in April. That figure is at its highest since October, when it was 14.8%.

Resales of homes for less than $400,000 dropped to 57.5% of sales, down from 62.2% in April and at its lowest point since November, when it hit 56.5%.

A total of 7,447 new and resale homes and condominiums sold in the nine-county region last month, up 4.3% from 7,139 this April and up 19.8% from 6,216 in May 2008.

DataQuick defines the Bay Area region as the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma.

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nathan.olivarezgiles@latimes.com