Higher Prices Dampen Home Sales For 4th Straight Month
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Rising home prices coupled with rising interest rates are being blamed for a fourth straight month of sales declines in November, a statewide real estate group announced Tuesday.
KNX 1070's Jon Baird reports the California Association of Realtors (CAR) said the November 2013 figure was the lowest since July 2010.
Higher Prices Dampen Home Sales For 4th-Straight Month
According to the most recent data, the median price of an existing single-family home in California slipped 1.2 percent from October's median price of $427,290 to $422,210 in November.
That average was still over 22 percent higher than the revised $345,560 recorded in November 2012, marking the 17th straight month of double-digit annual gains.
But higher prices may have been at least one factor in a 3.4 percent drop in sales to 387,520 homes in November, down from a revised 401,000 in October and down 12 percent from a revised 440,250 in November 2012, according to CAR.
Senior economist Selma Hepp said the lack of affordability is transforming the marketplace.
"A lot of investors that were sort of bolstering the market for a long time pulled out of the market," Hepp said. "We still have a lot of international buyers, but even they are now sort of dwindling away."
The data collected by CAR was sourced from more than 90 local realtor associations and listing services statewide.
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