Homes in the San Francisco Bay area sold last month at the fastest pace in almost nine years and prices approached a record as growing consumer confidence, historically low mortgage rates and job growth propelled sales.
A total of 9,386 new and existing houses and condominiums changed hands in nine Northern California counties, up 16 percent from a year earlier and the most for any month since August 2006, CoreLogic Inc. said in a report Friday. The median price was $660,000, up 6.8 percent from a year earlier and 0.8 percent below the peak of $665,000 reached in June and July of 2007, according to the Irvine, California-based real estate information service.
