The median price of a home in San Diego County rose by 5.6 percent in November, compared with the same month a year ago, while the number of homes sold shot up 25.2 percent, a real estate information service announced Tuesday.
According to CoreLogic, the median price of a San Diego County home was $495,000 last month, up from $468,550 in November 2015. A total of 3,427 homes were sold in the region, up from 2,738 during the same month the previous year.
While home prices have increased a fair amount since 2015, they have leveled off over the past six months. The median home price in the county was roughly the same in November 2016 as it was in June 2016. Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic, attributed that to "affordability constraints."
"Home prices have increased faster than incomes, and there are more and more people who just can't afford to buy," he said.
A total of 19,530 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, according to CoreLogic. That was down 2.4 percent from 20,012 in October but up 24.1 percent from 15,738 in November 2015.
The median price of a Southern California home was $465,000 in November, unchanged from the month before but up 5.9 percent from $435,000 in October 2015.
"The main reason Southern California home sales in November shot up so sharply — 24 percent — year over year is the artificially weak sales recorded in November 2015," LePage said.
"Federal lending rules that kicked in during October 2015 resulted in delays that caused some deals to close in December 2015 rather than November 2015," LePage said. "This means the December sales tally this year will be compared to an artificially inflated December 2015."
He said this November's sales also benefited from having one more business day for transactions to be recorded compared to the same month last year.
