December median home price hits $475,000

San Diego County home prices reached their second-highest peak for 2015 in December, real estate data firm CoreLogic reported Tuesday.

The median home price rose 8 percent in the last 12 months to $475,000, CoreLogic said. The month-to-month increase was 1.5 percent.

The median home price for December also happened to be the second-highest since August 2007 when the median price was also $475,000. The median was $476,000 in June 2015.

Sales were also up. In December, 2,210 resale homes were sold — up 163 from the year before. There were 1,107 resale condo sales and 344 newly built homes sold.

A large spike in December sales is rare, and why it happened is open to debate.

Andrew LePage, CoreLogic research analyst, said the higher-than-normal increase could be attributed to lenders catching up with new requirements under TRID, or TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule. The new requirement from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went into effect on Oct. 3 and gives consumers three extra business days to review loan estimates but could lead to further delays.

It also could have contributed to the sluggish sales in November when the sales pace dropped 18.4 percent from October.

“While it’s normal for home sales to rise between November and December, the 33 percent gain between those two months in 2015 was more than double the typical, historical increase of about 14 percent,” LePage said of the Southern California market.

Cory Shepard, president of the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors, said local lenders were prepared for the changes, and the sales increase can be attributed to low mortgage interest rates and buyers trying to get end-of-the-year tax write-offs.

“We didn’t see a lot of transactions slow down by TRID,” he said. “It was a non-event for us. … In my opinion, it would not account for the strong sales.”

In the last 12 months, Orange County median sale prices rose the most in the Southern California market at 8.2 percent to $630,000, CoreLogic said. It was followed by Los Angeles at 8.1 percent, San Diego at 8 percent, San Bernardino at 6.9 percent, Riverside at 6.7 percent and Ventura at 3.4 percent.

S.D. Union Tribune By Phillip Molnar | 6:33 p.m. Jan. 18, 2016