California existing home sales rebounded in December after new loan disclosure rules delayed closings in November, the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) said.
Home sales exceeded the 400,000-unit level in December after falling short in November. Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 405,530 units in December, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local Realtor associations and MLS groups statewide. The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2015 if sales maintained the December pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.
For 2015 as a whole, a preliminary figure of 407,060 single-family homes closed escrow in California, up 6.4 percent from a revised 382,720 in 2014.
The December figure was up 9.6 percent from the revised 370,070 level in November and up 10.7 percent compared with home sales in December 2014 of a revised 366,460. The month-to-month increase in sales was the largest since January 2011, and the year-to-year increase was the largest since July 2015.
“As we speculated, sales that were delayed in November because of The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new loan disclosure rules closed in December instead, which led to the greatest monthly sales increase in nearly five years,” C.A.R. President Ziggy Zicarelli said in a news release. “Sales increased across the board in all price segments in December, but improvement in the sub-$500,000 market was more pronounced as many homes affected by the new loan disclosures were priced under the conforming loan limit.”
The median price of an existing, single-family detached California home rose 2.6 percent in December to $489,310 from $477,060 in November. December’s median price was 8 percent higher than the revised $453,270 in December 2014. The year-to-year price gain was the largest since August 2014.
“In line with our forecast, California’s housing market experienced strong sales and price growth throughout last year, with the median price increasing 6.2 percent for the year as a whole to reach $474,420 in 2015,” C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young said.