Home sales in California double

Bloomberg

The number of existing single-family detached homes sold in the state last month rose 117 percent to 552,750 on an annualized basis, from 254,650 a year earlier, the Los Angeles-based association said yesterday in a statement. The median home price in the most populous U.S. state dropped 40 percent to $311,060 from $517,240 a year earlier.

Home sales in California rose last month to their highest level since late 2005, driven by increases in the areas with the largest numbers of foreclosures, the Realtors group said. Foreclosures usually result in price discounts.

“The record gain stemmed primarily from extremely large increases in regions with a high concentration of distressed sales,” association President James Liptak said in the statement.

The association’s Unsold Inventory Index for single-family homes plunged to 5.9 months in October from 15.2 months a year earlier. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.

The median amount of time it took to sell a California home was 45 days last month, down from 58.8 days a year earlier, the association said.