California Home Sales Up 1% in September

The number of homes sold in California last month ticked up last month from August, as low mortgage rates and eagerness to cash in on a soon-to-expire tax credit fueled activity in a normally sluggish time for home buying, a tracking firm said Thursday.

San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said 40,216 homes were sold statewide in September, up 1 percent from 39,811 in August. Such gains are rare between August and September, with sales usually dropping an average of about 9 percent during the period, the firm said.

DataQuick President John Walsh said the healthy sales showed an improving market, but he cautioned that activity remained overly dependent on temporary incentives, such as the $8,000 tax credit for some first-time home buyers.

“For those who can buy, there are some very attractive opportunities,” he said. “But it looks like a lot of the normal supply-and-demand activity has been put on hold until the economy comes back.”

The firm said last month’s home sales were down 0.3 percent from 40,317 in September 2008, but still dramatically higher than the low of around 24,500 reached in mid-2007.

DataQuick spokesman Andrew LePage attributed the slight dip, the first decline since June 2008, to the decreasing availability of bargain-priced foreclosures that had driven the market over the last year.

Foreclosures accounted for about 42 percent of all sales, the lowest rate in more than a year. The figure was down from nearly 59 percent in February.

The firm also said the median home price in California edged up about 1 percent to $251,000 from $249,000 in August. Last month’s median was down more than 11 percent from $283,000 in September 2008.

10/15/2009 9:26 PM JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES