Southern California real estate prices fall again; sales pick up
Southern California home sales rose slightly in November ignoring the normal for the holiday season, probably due to bargain shopping and a slight upward trend in new-home sales. Okay that was the good news. 
November sales were the slowest in 20 years and the median sale price posted a record 10.3 percent year-over-year decline. 
According to Dataquick:
· A total of 13,173 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in November. That was up 2 percent from 12,913 sales in October, and down 42.7 percent from 23,005 in November last year.
· Last month's sales were the lowest for any November in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The previous low was in November 1992, when 15,446 homes sold. November has averaged 22,749 sales over the last 20 years.
· Sales usually decline between October and November, with that drop averaging 7.4 percent over the past two decades. Last month marked only the third November since 1988 in which sales rose above October, and it was almost entirely the result of an 11.5 percent increase in sales of newly built houses. The number of single-family houses that resold in November was about even with October, while condo re-sales fell 6 percent. The sales are based on the number of escrows that closed each month.