Orange County’s housing market saw record declines in prices and sales last month, as the late-summer credit crunch made it a struggle for homebuyers to qualify for jumbo loans.
The median price of a home in Orange County fell to $570,000 last month, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates.
That’s a 9.5% drop from a year ago, and an 11.2% drop from August’s median price of $642,500.
September’s median selling price was the lowest seen in OC since early 2005. It’s also the biggest month-to-month decline in more than a decade.
Sales languished again last month. There were 1,643 OC homes sold in September, down 44% from last year, and 28% from August’s already-low levels.
OC’s sales volumes mirrored the rest of Southern California, which saw its slowest sales month in more than two decades, according to DataQuick. The 12,455 September sales in SoCal were down 49% from last year’s levels.
Sales of lower-priced homes have fallen off in recent months amid the subprime mortgage meltdown. August’s price drop was a result of sales of higher-end properties falling too, as the mortgage market’s turbulence during the month made jumbo financing,loans for $417,000 or higher,hard to come by, DataQuick officials said.
The median sales price of a home in Southern California was $462,000 in September, down 7.6% from August and a 4% drop from a year ago.
