The median price of a home sold in Orange County jumped to a record $621,000 in December, up 13% from a year earlier.
The previous record, $616,000, was set in November.
The volume of homes sold in the county continued to slow.
The 3,826 houses sold in December was off 9% from a year earlier, according to La Jolla-based market tracker DataQuick Information Systems, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates.
The trend is part of a regional slowing.
Nearly 29,000 houses sold in Southern California last month, down 5% from a year earlier.
Last month’s Southern California sales count was the lowest for any December since 2001, DataQuick said. Only Riverside County, with a 17% increase yearly increase, saw a double-digit gain in December.
The median price paid for a Southern California home was $479,000 last month, the same as November. That figure was up 13% from December 2004.
Among big regional gainers, San Bernardino’s median was $361,000, up 29% from a year ago. Los Angeles saw a 17% gain to $490,000.
While OC median prices hit a monthly record in December, Ventura County leapt ahead of it as the most expensive in the region by median price at $630,000.
