The median paid last month was $421,000, up 1 percent from
June and 13 percent from a year earlier, the San Diego-based
data firm said today in a statement. It was the highest for the
nine-county region since $447,000 in August 2008. Sales rose on
a year-over-year basis for the 13th straight month.

Across California, housing has been buoyed by consumer
sentiment and low mortgage rates, with coastal areas like San
Francisco and West Los Angeles showing the biggest price
advances, Stuart Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real
Estate at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a
telephone interview. Inland cities still have widespread
negative equity, with many homes valued at less than their
mortgage balances, he said.

The median price statewide rose almost 12 percent from a
year earlier to $281,000, the highest since September 2008,
DataQuick said today in a separate report. Foreclosure deals
made up 22 percent of transactions, the smallest share since
November 2007, the company said.

“Housing has bottomed and, in fact, has turned,” Gabriel
said. “The coasts are among the hottest markets in the country.
Underwater homes are a limiting factor, but as prices rise they
will naturally bring forward new inventory and a willingness by
owners to market properties.”

‘Big Challenges’

Buyers in “mid- and move-up markets” fueled the price
gain in the Bay Area, with properties offered at $500,000 or
more accounting for 42 percent of total sales, up from 36
percent a year earlier, DataQuick President John Walsh said.
Mortgage availability “remains one of the big challenges in the
Bay Area,” he said in the statement.

Distressed deals in the Bay Area including foreclosures and
short sales, where the purchase price is lower than the loan
balance, made up almost 35 percent of transactions, down from 37
percent in June and 45 percent a year earlier, according to the
company.

Purchases financed by adjustable-rate mortgages were used
in 13 percent of Bay Area deals in July, down from 14 percent
both in June and a year earlier. Since 2000, those loans have
been used in almost half of all home purchases in the region,
DataQuick said.

Sales totaled 8,461, up 23 percent from July 2011.

San Francisco tops a list of U.S. metropolitan areas with
improved residential markets, based on price gains, inventories
and foreclosures, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-15/san-francisco-area-home-prices-jump-to-a-four-year-high