IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
The Southern California housing market is officially off to a weak start in 2019.
Sales of single-family houses and condominiums totaled 12,665 in January, a drop of 17.1 percent compared with January 2018, CoreLogic in Irvine reported.
That was the lowest number of houses sold in January since 2008, when 9,983 changed hands. Sales last month were 26 percent below the January average of 17,144 units sold.
Home sales in the six-county region – the Inland Empire plus Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties – have sustained year-over-year declines for eight of the last 10 months, including the last six.
Some would-be homebuyers at the end last year probably were reluctant to buy for several reasons, including high prices, an unpredictable stock market and uncertainty caused by the partial federal government shutdown that began three days before Christmas, said Andrew LePage, CoreLogic analyst, in a statement.
The median price of a Southern California home in January was $505,000, a two-percent increase year-over-year.
In the Inland region, sales were down 16.8 percent in Riverside County and 13.1 percent in San Bernardino County compared with January 2018. Median prices were $380,000 and $320,000, increases of 2.7 percent and 2.6 percent, CoreLogic reported.
