Orange County home prices fell 3% in December from November, while home sales remained sluggish amid a tough environment for mortgage loan-seekers.
The median price of an Orange County home was $565,000 in December, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates.
Median prices are down 10.3% from a year ago, and are off 12.4% from Orange County’s record high, set in June.
Sales in the county were off 42% from a year earlier, with 1,731 home sales in December. While modest, that’s still a 10% increase from November’s level of sales.
Across Southern California, it was by far the slowest December for home sales in more than 20 years, according to DataQuick, with a 23.5% drop from the second-lowest December on record, in 1990.
The median price of a Southern California home was $425,000 in December, a 13.3% decrease from a year ago. Last month’s median was down 2.4% from November’s levels, and is the lowest median price seen since February 2005.
The credit crunch has made it harder for larger loans to get approved, which is switching the mix of Southland homes being sold, according to DataQuick.
Sales financed with jumbo loans of $417,000 or more represented 40% of all Southland sales before last summer’s credit crunch. Now, jumbo loans make up about 22% of transactions.
