Southland Home Sales Continue to Increase

Southern California’s late-summer home-sales surge continued into September as buyers took advantage of low prices and very low mortgage interest rates, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 16,358 new and used homes were sold last month, up 0.8% from August’s 16,221 and up 27.4% from 12,838 for September last year. Last month’s total was the highest for any calender month since August, 1991, when 18,203 homes were sold, Dataquick Information Systems of La Jolla reported.

This year has now passed last year in sales activity. So far this year 124,742 residences have been sold, last year at this time it was 124,149. The year-to-date sales levels exceed 1992’s in all counties except Riverside and San Bernardino.

The sales surge was particularly strong in Orange County, especially in the newly built home category.

Southland Home Sales

Single-family No. Sold No. Sold Pct. Med (K) Med (K) Pct. resale 9/92 9/93 Chng 9/92 9/93 Chng Los Angeles 3,816 4,104 7.5% $192 $183 -4.7% Orange County 1,275 1,751 37.3% $220 $215 -2.3% San Diego 1,393 1,778 27.6% $176 $171 -2.8% Riverside 799 826 3.4% $130 $127 -2.3% San Bernardino 1,170 1,181 0.9% $126 $128 1.6% Ventura 484 576 9.0% $210 $202 -3.8% So. California 8,937 10,216 14.3% $180 $177 -1.7%