The San Francisco Bay Area’s housing market strengthened in June as increased sales of pricier homes helped push a key gauge of price strength to near a four-year high.
The region’s median home price was up 4.3% from May and 10.4% from June 2011, real estate firm DataQuick of San Diego said. The median, which is the point at which half the homes in the area sold for more and half for less, was $417,000 last month.
“Some of today’s stats are similar to what we saw in the thick of the housing downturn back in 2009, only in reverse: Instead of foreclosure resales soaring they’re waning, and instead of high-end sales slumping they’re posting some of the larger sales gains,” DataQuick president John Walsh said in a news release. “This is one of the main reasons that various price measures are pointing higher -- a so-called change-in-market mix. While last month’s jump in the median sale price might to some extent reflect prices edging a bit higher in certain markets, mostly it’s a reflection of the change in market mix.”
Sales of homes in the nine-county Bay Area were down 2.6% from the prior month but up 7.2% to total 8,577.
source: latimes.com
