Inland home sales number decline but prices rise
Press Enterprise
By Leslie Berkman
...With fewer price-slashed foreclosed houses for sale in Inland Southern California, sales declined last month while prices rose compared to a year earlier...
..."The good piece of news is that house prices have stopped falling for over a year now," said Richard Green, director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate.
"Homeowners are no more upside down than they were a year ago and new loans for new home purchases are all solid," Green said. "It makes lenders more confident that they can lend and consumers more confident about buying."
Green said that "given how far home prices fell in the Inland Empire, unless the job picture worsens it is hard for me to imagine they will fall more. In many cases, on a cash flow basis, it is cheaper to own than to rent now."...