The Inland Empire housing market stayed solid in November.
Sales of single-family homes were up 5.5 percent in Riverside County and 2.3 percent in San Bernardino County last month compared with November 2014, according to data released Wednesday by CoreLogic in Irvine.
Prices also posted solid gains: the median price of a single-family home in Riverside County in November was $318,500, a 4.4 percent year-over-year increase.
San Bernardino County’s median price was $277,500, a 9.3 percent increase, CoreLogic reported.
In Southern California, sales were up 2.4 percent and the median price – $438,000 – was a 6.8 percent year-over-year increase.
But sales were down 19.1 percent between October and November of this year, and median prices in the six-county region have barely moved since July, said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic.
“November 2015 was one of the slowest Novembers for Southern California home sales in the last quarter century,” LePage said in a statement. “It’s normal for activity to drop between October and November, but the 19 percent decline between the two months this year was roughly double the typical decrease.”
Still, CoreLogic’s November housing report was overwhelmingly positive and a sign of a healthy economy, said Jordan Levine, senior economist at the UC Riverside School of Business’ Center for Economic Forecasting.
“It’s a strong report, and I think it shows that the market still has room for growth,” Levine said. “Sales are up, which is the brightest part of the report, and they should stay up. There’s no sign of anything causing a slowdown as we head into 2016.”