The median price of a Riverside County home increased in October, a real estate research firm reported today, another indication that Inland Southern California’s housing market is recovering from a long free-fall.

There were more than 4,000 homes changing hands in Riverside County last month, and the median price increased $5,000 to $190,000, MDA DataQuick reported.

In San Bernardino County, the median price held steady at $150,000, DataQuick reported. Median price means half the homes sold for more than that figure and half were less.

Two Southern California counties – San Diego and Orange – actually saw higher median sales prices than in October 2008, and across the six-county area, the year-to-year median price decline was the smallest in two years.

Sales were brisk across the region, possibly because of the increase in short sales, DataQuick reported. Sales that involve banks usually take much longer to close escrow, and some transactions that ordinarily would have closed during the summer are now being finalized in October.

The median home prices in the Inland area bottomed out in the spring, to $170,750 in Riverside County and $132,000 in San Bernardino County.

It is now almost three years since the rush to buy an Inland home drove the prices to their peak, which was about $430,000 in Riverside County and $380,000 in San Bernardino County.

By Jack Katzanek

Tags: Buying a Home, Home Buyers, Home Seller, Real Estate, Selling a Home

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Buyers, Foreclosures & Shortsales, Investment, Real Estate, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.