Home Prices in California Fall More Than 13%

clipped from blogs.wsj.com The Associated Press is reporting that the median home price in a six-county region of Southern California plunged more than 13 percent in December versus a year ago, according to DataQuick Information Systems. The average median price in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties hit $425,000 last month, the lowest level since February 2005, when the figure was $420,000, according to DataQuick. December’s median price dropped 2.4 percent from the November figure of $435,000. Home sales in the region, one of the hardest hit in the nation by the mortgage crisis, also plummeted compared to December 2006, dropping 45.3 percent to 13,240 — the lowest sales total for any December in more than 20 years “We’re in the midst of turbulence and we won’t know what really has been going on until things have settled down and we can look back,” California’s housing market has been hammered by falling sales and home prices