The Golden State is about to become the State Of The Half-Million Dollar Home.

California's median price of single-family detached resale homes inched closer to $500,000 in March as prices rose 15.7 percent in the past year. Sales were up 7.5 percent, according to the California Association of Realtors (CAR).

That put the median price at $495,400, up 5.2 percent from February -- a greater increase than some areas enjoy in a year, but the state's smallest annual price gain in two years, indicating some wear on the booming market. The median price for condos wasn't far behind at $397,980, after rising even more during the past year, 18.7 percent.

"The median price of a home was just shy of a half-million dollars in March, although the annual rate of increase was the smallest we've seen since June 2003," said Jim Hamilton, CAR president.

"The inventory of homes for sale has increased compared to a year ago, which has lessened the upward pressure on home prices, but consumers' perceptions that interest rates will increase continues to drive the market."

The year-to-year price increases ranged from 10.2 percent in Orange County to a whopping 37.5 percent jump in the arid High Desert region which remains the state's most affordable with a $264,320 median price.

The most expensive regions include Santa Barbara's posh South Coast, with a median of $1.15 million and the San Francisco Bay Area cluster -- Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) $733,000; Santa Cruz County, $725,000; San Francisco, $704,060.

In addition to the High Desert region, the low end included the Central Valley with a median price of $324,640; Riverside/San Bernardino at $347,200 and Sacramento at $357,360.

Revealing market pressures on high-cost regions, month-to-month prices actually dropped in Santa Barbara County by 6.7 percent; Monterey County, 3.6 percent; Los Angeles, 1.5 percent and Santa Cruz County, by 0.7 percent.

Also, homes took a little longer to sell. The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 31 days in March 2005, compared with 25 days for the same period a year ago.

Still, sales are golden.

Year-to-year sales of single family homes fell by double digits in Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz counties and were down by 5.9 percent in San Diego and 4.6 percent in San Francisco but rose in virtually every other region.

Month-to-month condo sales rose by more than 60 percent.

"Year-to-date sales are 6 percent ahead of last year's pace, reflecting the continued strength of the real estate market and the improving economic fundamentals of the California economy," said Leslie Appleton-Young, CAR's chief economist.

In a separate report covering more localized statistics generated by CAR and La Jolla, CA-based DataQuick Information Systems, 97.5 percent or 396 of 406 cities and communities showed an increase in median home prices from a year ago.

"Demographic growth in the state's population also is fueling much of this activity -- California has absorbed three million new residents since 2000," she added.

Published: April 27, 2005

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.