California Median House Price Rises 23% on Use of Tax Credits
California house prices rose 23 percent in May from a year earlier as homebuyers took advantage of government tax credits, the state’s Realtors group said.
The median price of an existing single-family home was $324,430, the California Association of Realtors said today in a statement. It was the fifth straight monthly increase of at least 10 percent, the Los Angeles-based group said. Prices rose 5.9 percent from April.
California home prices were helped by homebuyer tax credits, the association said. To qualify for a federal credit, buyers were required to sign a contract by April 30 and complete the purchase by July 1. A state credit of as much as $10,000 began May 1.
The price gains indicated “strong buyer demand relative to the supply of homes for sale,” said Steve Goddard, president of the association.
May sales of existing California houses rose 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from a year earlier and 14 percent from April, the Realtors association said.
The median time it took to sell a California house dropped to 39.8 days in May from 52.4 days a year earlier, the Realtors group said. The association’s index of unsold inventory was 4.6 months, unchanged from May 2009. The index shows the time needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Taub in Los Angeles at dtaub@bloomberg.net.
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