Southland housing market heats up in April

Home prices in the Southland surged last month and sales reached boom-era levels.

Dwellings in the six-county area sold at the fastest clip for an April in seven years, as regular buyers and investors snapped up a total of 21,415 properties, real estate firm DataQuick reported on Tuesday.

That was a 4.1% increase from March and a 9.5% spike from April 2012.

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“This is a market that is still re-balancing. Sales of deeply discounted properties in affordable neighborhoods are way down,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in a statement. “Activity in middle and high-end communities is on its way up.”

The median price paid for a home in the Southland last month was $357,000. That was a 3.3% increase from the previous month, a 23.1% jump from April 2012 and a 58-month high for the median price, which is the price where half the homes in the region sold for more and half for less.

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