by Calculated Risk on 4/14/2006 11:14:00 AM

Here are three articles on house prices and sales volumes:

From the San Diego Union: San Diego housing market continues cooling trend

... the San Diego region's housing market continued its slow cooling trend in March, which marked the 11th month in a row of single-digit price gains.

The end of the first quarter also marked the 21st consecutive month in which sales volumes were down on a year-over-year basis, DataQuick Information Systems reported Thursday.
...
Last month's overall sales count was 4,146, a decline of 17 percent from March 2005. That was the lowest count for March since March 1998, when 4,016 homes sold.

The pace of resale condo sales fell by nearly 30 percent to 841 units, compared to the same month last year. That was a gain over February's resale condo tally of 657 units, however.

The overall median price for all homes sold was $504,000, a 5.7 increase over March 2005 and a slight rise over February's median of $502,000. The county hit a record overall median price of $518,000 in November 2005.

From the LA Times: Housing Prices in L.A. Aren't Letting Up

In March, the median hit $506,000, up 15% from a year earlier and 3% above the prior month, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla-based research firm that analyzes property transactions.

Los Angeles County thus joined Orange, Ventura and San Diego counties in crossing the half-million-dollar mark, keeping Southern California's place among the nation's priciest housing markets. Orange and Ventura counties' medians sailed through the $600,000 level in the middle of last year, and San Diego's broke through the $500,000 point last fall.
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Sales volumes are slowing while more homes are coming on the market. In March, 9,755 homes changed hands in L.A. County, a 10.3% decline from a year earlier, and the fifth straight month of falling sales.
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Today's combination of prices rising more slowly, fewer sales and growing supply are typical of the first phase of a slowdown, UCLA economist Christopher Thornberg says.

"Prices are still going up, because they always go up even when the market starts to cool," he says. "It will take six to nine months for a cooling market to start to see lower prices. It happens time after time."

From the Arizona Republic: Median resale housing prices still dropping

Median resale housing prices kept falling through most of the Southeast Valley in March, mainly because there are so many more homes on the market. But it's still too early to say if this will continue for the rest of the year.

The main exception was Ahwatukee Foothills, where prices jumped 6 percent from February to March, to $364,250. But that is still below its December median of $386,250. Median home prices from February to March fell 5 percent in Gilbert to $322,500, and almost 4 percent in Tempe to $288,400.

Prices in Mesa, meanwhile, fell less than 1 percent to $243,500, and 1.6 percent in Chandler to $295,000.