IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Despite rising prices and concern about the economy slowing, Southern California home sales rose substantially in August, according to data released Monday.
Total sales of new and resales houses and condominiums totaled 23,278 last month, up 9.5 percent year-over-year, Irvine-based CoreLogic reported in its monthly assessment of the six-county housing market.
That was the largest sales total for the month of August in 10 years.
“Last month’s Southern California home sales came in strong – the highest for an August in a decade,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic, in a statement.
“Job growth, low interest rates, household formation … helped drive up activity. The big picture is that the housing market continues to edge back toward normalcy in the wake of the worst housing bust in modern history.”
The region’s median price – $465,000 – was up 6.2 percent compared with August 2015, according to CoreLogic.
In the Inland Empire, year-over-year home sales were up 14.2 percent in Riverside County and 8.2 percent in San Bernardino County. All six markets – the Inland region along with Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties – posted positive year-over-year sales gains, the largest being Orange County, at 14.5 percent.
The median price of a home in Riverside County last month was $337,500 a 7.1 percent hike compared with August 2015. San Bernardino County’s median was $275,000, a year-over-year increase of nearly two percent, CoreLogic reported.
