SoCal Home Sales Hit Lowest Rate in 12 Years Last Month
Southern California home sales were at their lowest rate in a dozen years last month. The Real Estate tracking firm Dataquick reports just under 20,000 homes changed hands in May.
Dataquick's John Karevoll says that's down sharply from more than 30,000 sales in May of last year. He says home prices remained stable, but the housing market is holding on to a precarious balance. Karevoll says the lower priced home market is particularly vulnerable.
Karevoll : If we had interest rates go up another half percent from where they are today, that would start this domino effect. Then we'd start to see some severe demand issues at the low end where they're very sensitive to interest rates, and that could migrate on up the totem pole to the mid market.
Karevoll says home sales have now dropped for 20 months in the six-county Southern California region. He says it’s surprising that home prices have moved down more as a result of the sluggish sales activity.
