Home and condominium sales in the Santa Clarita Valley increased in April and inventory rose for the 11th consecutive month, a report by the Southland Regional Association of Realtors showed.
Data showed that a total of 214 single-family homes changed owners in April, which was up 12% from a year ago and 27% higher than in March.
The association helped close escrow on 104 condominiums all throughout last month, which was up 9.5% from 2018 and 27.8% ahead of March. It was the first month to break the 100-sale benchmark going back to August and only the fourth since July 2017.
“Santa Clarita is so desirable that it often sells itself, so buyers just needed to believe they had a real shot at owning a home,” said Amanda Etcheverry, the 2019 chair of the Santa Clarita Division of SRAR, in a statement. “Four months of falling interest rates on home loans, combined with a growing inventory, and sellers willing to negotiate, did the trick.”
The median price of homes that changed owners last month came in at $608,200, up 3.4% from April 2018 and off nearly 1% from the March median price. Unlike most other Southern California communities, Santa Clarita has yet to break its record high home median of $643,000 set last decade in April 2006, the report read.
So far this real estate cycle, the local median home price has peaked at $615,000 in May 2018, but has bounced around under it ever since, data showed. The condominium median price for April of $410,000 matched the record high of April 2018.
The association listed at the end of April a total of 600 active listings throughout Santa Clarita. That was up 25.8 percent from a year ago and represented a 1.9-month supply at the current pace of sales.
It was the 11th consecutive month that the listing total came in higher than the prior year, suggesting a shift in attitude by homeowners, a willingness to sell.