Bay Area median home price rises again - South Florida Business Journal:

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Bay Area sales volume rose for the nintj month ina row. The media home sales price in the Bay Area in May was up 12.3 percent from $304,000 recorde in April but down more than a third from the $517,00 0 median sales price in May 2008. Bay Area home pricese peaked at $665,000 in July 2007. The lowest price were recorded in Marchthis year, when the mediaj was $290,000. A tad over a quarte r of homes sold inthe nine-county Bay Area in May -- 25.5 percenyt -- were financed with so-called “jumbo” loansw over $417,000, down a tick from 25.8 percent figure in October. Jumbo loans were used in 60 percent of home sales twoyeare ago, according to DataQuick.
“Some people are goingy to take this as a sign that the markeyt hasbottomed out. Maybe – or maybe not. We won’ty know for at least half a saidJohn Walsh, MDA DataQuick president, in a statement announcing the May result Thursday. Some 42.1 percent of Bay Area homes sold in May had been foreclosed during thepast year, down from 46.4 percenf in April, DataQuick The peak was 52 set in February. Some 7,447 homes sold in the Bay Areain May, up 4.3 percenft from April, and up 19.8 percent from May which was the slowest Bay Area sales month in the 21 yearw DataQuick has been recordingf sales statistics.
In San Francisco, sales volume dropped 19 compared with a year earlierf to498 homes. In everyh other Bay Area counttyexcept Marin, sales volume was up, sometimes dramatically. Six fewerf homes sold in May this year in Marinj compared with ayear ago. San Francisc recorded the Bay Area’s smallest year-over-year price drop in May -- the average home sold for $634,000, down 19 percenty from May 2008. The biggestt drop was in Contra Costa, wherw the average sales pricewas 39.9 perceny less in May than in the year-earlier May.