Bay Area home prices soar in April, sales flat from a year earlier

Home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area surged in April amid robust demand, bucking a national cooling trend with the help of a booming tech industry.

The region’s median home price soared 5.4% from March to $610,000 in April, research firm DataQuick said Wednesday. Prices climbed 19.6% from April of last year, reaching the highest level since fall 2007.

Sales, meanwhile, posted large gains from a month earlier. Buyers scooped up 7,555 new and previously owned houses and condos in April, 19.8% more than March. On average since 1988, sales have risen 4.8% from March to April, DataQuick said.

Sales were essentially flat over the year.

That compares to a cooling Southern California housing market, where sales have now fallen year over year for seven straight months.

But in the nine-county Bay Area the technology industry has kept the market humming.

The region’s median price is now just 8% below its pre-crash peak reached in summer 2007.

Investors continued their pullback last month. Absentee buyers – mostly investors—purchased 20.2% of homes sold in April, down from 20.7% in March and 24.2% in April 2013.

All-cash buyers declined as well.

Prices climbed the fastest in Alameda and Solano counties in April. The median price in Alameda County jumped 26.0% from a year earlier to $565,000, and prices rose 26.1% to $300,000 in Solano County.

In San Francisco, the median price rose 13.2% from April of last year to hit $922,500.