Houses Sell

The median resale price for a single-family detached home on the South Coast reached rose $1.1 million this July, an increase of 4.8 percent compared to last summer, according to California Association of Realtors (CAR) statistics released on 8/27. Homes sold hand-over-fist during the month, exceeding July 2006 sales by 28 percent. The picture was far different in North County, where the median price fell 15 percent to $386,000, and sales were 47 percent slower this July than they had been a year previously. Statewide, prices increased by 3.2 percent, to a median of $586,030, with slower sales and smaller price increases more pronounced in lower-priced markets. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported the Massachusetts-based research firm Global Insight’s prediction that the median price of homes across the US this year will fall slightly for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950.