SoCal's Median Home Price Stayed Flat All Summer

Research firm DataQuick released its latest report on the local real estate market today, and the big takeaway is that the median sale price hasn't moved all summer, but is way higher than it was last August. Last month the median home price in LA County was $429,000 and $385,000 in the six-county region. But below the headline there are some interesting trends--as DQ president John Walsh put it, "There's something for everyone in today's housing data."
-- The median price has climbed to just over halfway point between its 2005 peak and 2009 bottom.
-- The number of houses that sold for more than $500,000 is up 48.7 percent since August 2012.
-- Short sales made up the smallest share of sales since 2009 to 13.6 percent. That's down from 26.6 percent last August
-- Absentee buyers accounted for 26.3, their lowest share since November 2011
-- Six percent of homes sold were flips, same as the previous month
-- Cash buyers bought 27.6 percent of houses in August, down from 30 percent in july. The median cash purchase was $325,000.
-- Adjustable rate mortgages made up 11.6 percent of loans, the highest since 2008.
-- Prices and interest rates may have climbed, but new mortgage payments are well of their peak: "The typical monthly mortgage payment Southland buyers committed themselves to paying last month was $1,545, up from $1,537 the month before and up from $1,124 a year earlier. Adjusted for inflation, last month's typical payment was 35.5 percent below the typical payment in the spring of 1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. It was 47.1 percent below the current cycle's peak in July 2007."
· Southland Median Sale Price Steady Month-to-Month, Up Sharply Year-Over-Year [DQ]
· State O' The Market Archives [Curbed LA]