Firm: N. Calif Home Prices Dip 5 Percent In March

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The San Francisco Bay Area's median home price dipped 5.3 percent last month to $360,000 from $380,000 in March 2010, as low-priced foreclosures and other distressed properties continued to dominate the market, a tracking firm reported Thursday.

San Diego-based DataQuick said the median in the nine-county region was up 6.7 percent from $337,250 in February but stressed that prices usually increase between February and March.

The depressed prices helped maintain home sales, which edged up 0.2 percent from 7,040 in March 2010 to 7,051 last month. The slight sales boost made last month's count the highest for a March since 8,317 homes sold in March 2007.

Sales were up 41.3 percent from 4,991 in February, but a sales increase is also normal between the two months, DataQuick said.

"The housing market has certainly moved well back from the abyss of two years ago, but there is quite a ways to go before it's even remotely normal," said DataQuick president John Walsh.

Fewer than 33.7 percent of last month's sales were for homes costing more than $500,000, down from a March average of 47 percent over the past decade, the firm said.

Foreclosures accounted for 31.5 percent of last month's resales, down from 32.6 percent in February but up from 31.3 percent in March 2010. The monthly average for foreclosure resales over the past 15 years is about 9 percent.

Short-sale transactions, in which lenders allow distressed homes to be sold for less than what is owed on them, accounted for 17.6 percent of last month's sales.

"The Bay Area has much less of a foreclosure problem than the rest of the state, but by its own standards, it's still a sizeable problem that acts as a drag on prices," Walsh said.

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