Prices of Bay Area homes were essentially flat last month compared with a year earlier, while sales volume fell to its lowest level for any February since 1996.The median price of all homes sold in February in the nine-county region - including resale and new houses and condos - was $620,000, according to DataQuick Information Systems, which gathers the data from public records. That’s up just 0.3 percent from February 2006, and up 3.2 percent from January.

In keeping with a nearly two-year trend of slower sales, just 6,305 homes of all types sold across the region last month, the fewest since February 1996.

Prices in some counties, for some housing types, increased a bit more than the Bay Area average.

The biggest increase for resale house prices was in Santa Clara County, where the median rose to $749,000 last month, up 4 percent from February 2006, and up 5.5 percent from January 2007. Resale houses in San Mateo County had a median price of $795,000 last month, up 2.6 percent from a year earlier. In Alameda County, the median price of resale houses increased 2.9 percent compared with February 2006, to $618,000.

Condo median prices fell 0.8 percent in the Bay Area as a whole; in Santa Clara County the median price of condos rose 1 percent compared with February 2006, to $505,000.

The median marks the mid-point, meaning half the homes sold fetched more than the median price, and half sold for less. Sales that became final in February likely were initiated in December or January. January and February statistics tend to be some of the least useful in predicting trends, DataQuick’s Andrew LePage said, but March’s figures should give a clearer picture of price trends this year.

Source:

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