Southern California Home Sales Rise Record 65 Percent (Update2)

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Southern California home sales rose 65 percent in September, the biggest year-over-year increase in at least two decades, as buyers took advantage of foreclosures to purchase properties at discounted prices, MDA DataQuick said.

A total of 20,497 new and existing houses and condominiums sold last month in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties. The rise from a year earlier was the biggest in MDA DataQuick's records, which go back to 1988, and September's sales count was the highest since December 2006, the San Diego-based company said today in a statement.

Sales increased the most in areas where rising foreclosures drove down prices, MDA DataQuick said. Half of all the homes sold in Southern California last month had been foreclosed upon in the previous 12 months, up from 13 percent a year earlier.

``The prices are low enough that people who would normally not be able to purchase are buying,'' said Stephanie Martin, owner of Champion Realtors, a San Bernardino-based residential brokerage.

A foreclosed home with three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in Fontana, California, that Martin sold for Ocwen Financial Corp. this month attracted more than a dozen offers and sold for $25,000 more than its asking price, she said. ``The buyers are out there. They're looking.''

Sales of foreclosed homes were highest in Riverside County, where they accounted for 69 percent of the homes sold, MDA DataQuick said. Riverside also had the biggest increase in the number of homes sold, more than doubling from a year earlier to 4,551. San Bernardino had the second-highest percentage of foreclosure sales, at 63 percent, and had the second-largest rise in sales, at 88 percent.

`Steep Price Declines'

``Steep price declines, especially inland, have improved housing affordability quite a bit and may keep sales levels well above the record lows we saw late last year and early this year,'' said John Walsh, president of MDA DataQuick, a unit of Richmond, British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. ``It will depend on the severity of this economic downturn.''

The surge in foreclosure sales, which tend to be discounted, pushed the median price down 33 percent from a year earlier to $308,500. The September median was 39 percent below the record $505,000 median reached in Southern California last year, said MDA DataQuick, which compiles its surveys using county records and supplies real estate information to public agencies, lenders, title companies and other customers.

Prices fell in all six Southern California counties the company tracks, dropping the most in San Bernardino and Riverside, down 37 percent in each, followed by San Diego County, which was down 30 percent to a median $328,000.