Bay Area Home Sales Reach Highest Level Since 2005

Trying to buy a house? So is everyone else. According to real estate data company DataQuick, July house and condo sales throughout the Bay Area were the highest since 2005.

A total of 9,339 new and resale houses and condos were purchased last month in the nine-county Bay Area, the highest for a July in eight years, according to DataQuick. An expanding supply of homes on the market, along with pent-up demand, pushed sales up 13.3 percent from July 2012.

The sales were at their highest since 12,538 homes were sold in July 2005.

Santa Clara County saw the biggest spike: 2,244 homes were sold, 26.1 percent more than the 1,779 from July 2012. In San Francisco, 718 homes sold last month, up 31.3 percent from last July's 547 sales. Solano County was the only Bay Area county that recorded fewer sales this July than last, totaling a 0.8 percent decrease.

Buyers paid a median price of $562,000 for a home last month, 1.3 percent more than in June and a a whopping 33.5 percent more than last year.

Along with the rise in sales, the median price of homes in the Bay Area also has increased, reaching its highest level in more than 5½ years.

In July, the median price was $562,000, the highest since December 2007 when homes were averaging a price tag of roughly $587,500, according to DataQuick.

Twelve months ago, the median price of homes in the nine-county region was 33.5 percent lower, averaging roughly $421,000 per sale.

All counties throughout the Bay Area recorded an increase in median sale prices, but none more than in Contra Costa County, which saw its median sale price rise nearly 43 percent from $308,000 to $440,000, according to DataQuick.