Palos Verdes Home Prices Rose 4 Percent

LOS ANGELES, CA -- The median price of a home in Los Angeles County rose by 4 percent in December, compared with the same month a year earlier, while the number of homes sold dipped by 5.5 percent, a real estate information service announced Tuesday.

According to CoreLogic, the median price of a Los Angeles County home was $520,000 last month, up from $500,000 in December 2015. A total of 6,862 homes were sold in the county, down from 7,263 during the same month the previous year.

In Orange County, the median price was $665,000 last month, up 5.3 percent from $631,250 in December 2015. The number of homes fell by 0.3 percent, from 3,259 in December 2015 to 3,250 last month.

A total of 20,454 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, according to CoreLogic. That was up 4.7 percent from 19,534 in November but down 2.9 percent from 21,069 in December 2015.

The median price of a Southern California home was $470,000 in December, up 1.1 percent from $465,000 in November and up 6.8 percent from $440,000 in December 2015.

"Southern California home sales in December 2016 fell on a year-over- year basis for the first time since last summer, but there's a caveat," said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic. "The number of deals recorded in December 2015 was artificially high, the result of then-new federal mortgage rules that caused delays for many transactions that normally would have closed the prior month. December 2015 also had one more business day for recording deals compared with December 2016.

Those factors outweighed whatever boost December 2016 sales got from the presidential election, which reportedly resulted in an initial surge in purchase mortgage applications as rising mortgage rates spurred some on-the- fence buyers to jump into the housing market before rates could edge higher."

-- City News Service, photo via Shutterstock