Housing sales down again

The local housing market is definitely slowing down.

Sales year-to-year were down 13.8 percent in Riverside County and 5.9 percent in San Bernardino County in February, according to DataQuick in San Diego.

In Southern California, single-family home sales dropped 12 percent compared with February 2012.

A little more than 14,027 homes were sold last month in the six-county region, the lowest number for the month of February in six years. Last month was also the fifth consecutive month that home sales in Southern California experienced a year-to-year drop, according to DataQuick.

“February was another month with lackluster home sales,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president, in a statement. “The drop in housing affordability is enough to nudge some out of the market [but] other would-be buyers have no doubt called ‘time-out‘ while re-evaluating their housing priorities.”

The next three months will give analysts a better idea of what’s been holding back the market, Walsh said.

Higher prices, as Walsh alluded to, have been a factor. The median price of homes in Southern California last month was $383,000, a 19.7 percent increase compared with February 2012.

Prices in the Inland Empire also rose substantially year-to-year: the median price in Riverside County, $285,000, was a 25 percent increase, while the median price in San Bernardino County, $225,000, represented a 28.6 percent increase, according to DataQuick.

One local housing analyst called the numbers discouraging, but said it’s too early to say the Inland Empire, or Southern California, has entered a housing slump.

“I need to see more data before I start using that word, but it’s looking like 2014 is going to be a lackluster year compared with 2013,” said Steve Johnson, Southern California regional director for Metrostudy, which provides housing data to government agencies. “But I’m looking at the housing data and the jobs data, and I think I’m seeing the beginning of a rough time for Southern California.”