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Friday, Apr 24, 2026

Home Prices Slide $5,000 in February

The median price paid for an Orange County home was $410,000 in February, a $5,000 or 1.2% decrease from the prior month, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick.

The median price seen here at the end of February is about 2% below year-ago levels.

Prices here remain about 36% below the $645,000 median price seen at the peak of the market, in mid-2007, according to a Tuesday report from MDA DataQuick, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates.

Median prices in OC are up about 12% from the bottom of the latest cycle, seen in early 2009.

There were 1,903 sales reported in OC last month. That’s down about 4% from year-ago levels, and is roughly the same as January’s sales volumes.

For all Southern California, February’s median price was $275,000, up about 2% from a month ago and unchanged from a year ago.

OC counts the most expensive median home price in the region. Ventura County was the second-priciest Southland county in February, with a $345,000 median price.

Sales volumes for Southern California were off 6% from year-ago levels, and were 0.6% below January’s levels.

Foreclosure resales—homes foreclosed on in the past year—accounted for 37% of the region’s resale market last month, down from 42% a year ago.

Short sales made up about 20% of the region’s resales last month.

Cash buyers made up 31.7% of the sales market last month, the highest percentage seen for any month since MDA DataQuick began keeping records in 1988. Those cash buyers paid a median price of $200,000 for their homes.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the former Editor-in-Chief and current Community Editor of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.

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