LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Xinhua) -- California's median home price has set a new record, topping 600,000 U.S. dollars for the first time in history, a report from the California Association of Realtors (CAR) said Tuesday.
According to the report, the median home sale price in the Golden State reached 600,860 dollars in May, jumping up 2.8 percent from April and 9.2 percent from May 2017. The previous record was 594,530 dollars 11 years ago, during the real estate bubble prior to the 2008 economic crisis.
"As we predicted last month, California's statewide median home price broke the previous pre-recession peak set in May 2007 and hit another high as tight supply conditions continued to pour fuel on the price appreciation fire," CAR Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young said in a press release.
The median home price in California is more than twice the national median home price of 264,800 dollars, the report said.
The increase was largely driven by high costs in the Bay Area, where the median price sat above 1 million dollars for the second straight month, the report said, adding that in San Francisco, buyers paid an average of 18 percent above the asking price.
The price in Los Angeles County was slightly lower than the statewide number at 528,540 dollars, but the growth rate was in double digit.
The other factor pushing the price upward is a major shortage of housing supply in the state, particularly in the bottom-end of the market, where homes are priced below 200,000 dollars. Last year, these homes' inventory declined by nearly 29 percent, while the supply of homes on the market priced at 1 million dollars and up increased by more than 18 percent.
