Housing market shows mild uptick

The Southern California housing market improved slightly during April, showing the smallest year-to-year decrease in six months.

Slightly more 20,000 new and resale single-family homes were sold in the six-county region last month, down 6.6 percent compared with April 2013 but up 13.4 percent compared with March, according to DataQuick, the real estate tracking service in La Jolla.

Prices, however, continued to climb: the median price of a single-family home in Southern California last month was $404,000, a 13.2 percent increase compared with April 2013, according to DataQuick.

High prices and a lack of inventory are combining to keep sales down, but more houses are expected to come online soon, said Andrew LaPage, a DataQuick analyst.

“If the inventory grows more, which we consider likely, it’s going to make it a lot easier for sales to reach at least an average level, which we haven’t seen in more than seven years,” LaPage said in a statement. “There are certainly factors undermining housing demand … but there are considerable forces fueling demand, too: employment is rising, families are growing and more people can qualify to buy again after losing a home to foreclosure or a short sale over the past eight years.”

Sales were down 10 percent in Riverside County and 3.1 percent in San Bernardino County, according to DataQuick.