The median price of a home in Southern California is $247,000, a staggering 36 percent drop from last April, when the median price was $385,000. Foreclosures have resulted for more than half of all sales, with 54 percent of all previously owned and resold properties the product of foreclosure.
Sales, on the other hand, have risen 31 percent from last year, which analysts have attributed to a decline in median price that does not accurately reflect the decline in value of the homes. Foreclosure discounts have pushed home prices beneath the actual value of the homes themselves and these properties are …read more

During the residential real estate boom times, home prices in California soared sky-high. Homeowners sat back and watched their homes double, even triple in value seemingly overnight.
 
Those days are over.
 
In another sign that the housing industry’s woes aren’t a quick blip, the California Association of Realtors last week announced that sales this September in the state dipped 38.9 percent from the same month last year. Sales dropped 14.9 percent from August of this year to September alone.
 
In even worse news, the association reported that the median price in September of an existing single-family home in California came in at $530,830, …read more