LOS ANGELES, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Southern California's median home price increased 8.4 percent in March from a year earlier, setting a new all-time high.
The six-county region's midpoint of all sales hit a record 519,000 U.S. dollars last month, up 40,000 dollars from a year earlier, real estate data provider CoreLogic said on Monday.
March's median topped the previous all-time high of 509,500 dollars set in December. Home prices have gone up steadily for six straight years. Sales, meanwhile, fell 6.2 percent from the same month last year.
"The rate we are seeing price appreciation is simply the lack of inventory," Selma Hepp, chief economist with California brokerage Pacific Union International, told Los Angeles Times.
Prices hit all-time highs in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. A 110-million-dollar home sale in Malibu is set to be a new record for Los Angeles County.
The median-priced home in Los Angeles County sold for 585,000 dollars, a gain of 36,000 dollars or 6.6 percent. The typical Orange County homebuyer paid 725,000 dollars in March, up 58,000 dollars or 8.7 percent year over year.
In the long run, the current rate of price increases is unsustainable, said Hepp, who predicted a slowdown to a 5 percent annual gain in 2019 and 2 percent a year later.
