Bay Area home sales slow, but median price jumps to record $660,000 in May

The San Jose Mercury reports:

Though fewer Bay Area homes changed hands last month than during any May since 1995, the median price of all homes climbed to a record $660,000, a real estate information firm reported today.

In the nine-county region, 8,080 new and resale houses and condos sold in May, a decline of nearly 19 percent compared with May 2006, according to DataQuick Information Systems, which gets its data from public records of completed sales. Sales have been falling on a year-over-year basis for 28 months.

But median prices in most Bay Area counties rose last month from a year earlier. In Santa Clara County, for example, the median price of resale houses sold in May was $793,750, up 5.1 percent from May 2006. The median price of resale condos rose 6 percent, to $529,250.

You've got to wonder about these prices.