Bay Area Real Estate Data

Some good news for the California Bay Area real estate market as reported by The San Jose Mercury News, the median price of Santa Clara County houses sold last month rose 29 percent from a year earlier, to $550,000, the biggest year-over-year increase in almost a decade, a real estate information firm reported today.

The last time the median price rose more steeply from the year before was in October 2000, when the median price was $490,000.

Last month's median price was also up from $510,500 in February, according to a monthly report from MDA DataQuick, which gathered the data from public records.

Santa Clara County condominiums also posted an increase, with the median price rising a full 50 percent from March 2009, to $345,000.

But the big increases in median price "shouldn't be viewed as evidence of surging home values," said John Walsh, DataQuick's president, in a statement released with the data. "It's a statistical quirk. A variety of data indicate prices in many communities have more or less flattened out or risen modestly, while they remain soft in others."

Median prices have risen sharply in recent months compared with year-ago levels primarily because the mix of homes selling is more normal now that it was a year ago, when post-foreclosure resales formed a bigger portion of the completed transactions.

A total of 1,108 previously owned single-family homes changed hands in the county in March, up 27 percent from March 2009, which posted the second-lowest sales of any March on record.

In San Mateo County, the median price of houses sold rose to $700,000, up 27 percent from March 2009, and up from $600,000 in February 2010. Median condo prices in San Mateo County climbed to $375,000, up 21 percent from a year earlier.

Sales volume there also surged 32 percent from a year earlier, to 387 houses sold last month. Condo sales increased 20 percent.

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