Homesales in SoCal surged in April 2008 - up 21.9 percent on the month

Jan Hatzius, the man who called a 2 trillion dollar loss on "pipeline effects" from the subprime debacle, on housing, the economy, commodities, and the Fed:

As home prices continue to fall and push people into negative equity, that's going to show up in bigger mortgage credit losses. Homeprices falling another 10% to 15% from here, which basically gets you back to valuations on trend of last 30 years. If you look at ratio of homeprices to rent if you get another 10 to 15% you are back to trend line.

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HW reports about a remarkable development in Southland, SoCal, the epicenter of the nations foreclosure mess. Sales in April surged higher.

Home sales in Southern California surged to their highest level since August of last year this past April, rising an astounding 21.9 during April compared to one month earlier, real estate information service DataQuick Information Systems reported Monday. While the monthly comparison is not seasonally-adjusted, sales typically rise by an average of 1.2 percent between the two months, the company said. Sales remained 19 percent below year-ago levels, and the bump in activity came despite record foreclosure activity within the state.

A total of 15,615 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties during April, DataQuick said.

The median price paid for a Southland home was $385,000 last month, unchanged from March and down 23.8 percent from the peak median of $505,000 in April of last year. Last month was the first in eight months that the median price in Southern California did not decline on a month-to-month basis.



source: Don’t Look Now, But SoCal Home Sales Surged in April
By PAUL JACKSON, HW
http://www.housingwire.com/2008/05/19/dont-look-now-but-socal-home-sales-surged-in-april/