Home sales stumble

Southern California home sales stumbled during February, posting a slight year-over-year loss and a larger decline  compared with January.

Sales of new and resold houses and condominiums were down 1.7 percent year-over-year and 3.4 percent month-over-month, Irvine-based CoreLogic reported Tuesday.

One reason for the decline was that this February had one less business day on which to record deals, and the average number of transactions recorded daily was slightly higher than it was in February 2016, said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic, in the statement.

Still, February home sales were about 14 percent below the average for that month during the past 30 years, LePage noted.

The median price of a home in the six-county region – the Inland Empire plus Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties – was $460,000 during the second month of the year, a 7 percent increase compared with February 2016 and a 1.1 percent increase month-over-month.

In the Inland Empire, sales were down 1.6 percent in Riverside County and were up 1.2 percent in San Bernardino County year-over-year. Median prices – $346,500 in Riverside County, $295,000 in San Bernardino County – were up 10 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, compared with February 2016, CoreLogic reported.