AUGUST HOME SALES FALL PRICES STILL MAKING BIG GAINS IN MUCH OF SOUTHLAND.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

An anticipated cooling trend may have swept into California's residential real estate market during August as sales fell 8.5 percent from a year ago and were down from July but still remained on a record pace, as did prices, said a report released Friday.

On an annualized basis, last month's activity would produce 591,150 single-family sales this year, said the California Association of Realtors, down from 645,720 in August 2003.

The Realtors are not surprised by the drop because the August 2003 pace was the highest ever. The sales count is the anticipated yearly total if each month matched August's activity.

Actual sales are running 5.2 percent ahead of last year's record total of 601,770 units.

``We still had a very impressive month of August. It's still a very strong sales figure,'' said Robert Kleinhenz, the association's deputy chief economist.

Prices continued making big gains in August, setting records statewide and across much of Southern California. Last month the median price jumped 16.8 percent statewide to $474,370 and increased 2.6 percent from July.

The association's economist have been expecting sales to taper off from last year and it now looks like that will be the case. Kleinhenz said last year's market took off in August with annualized sales above 600,000 for each month into this year.

Now he thinks counts will be under 2003 for the rest of this year and August might have been the month it started. For example, for the first seven months of this year, sales were 7.4 percent ahead of last year and the gap narrowed in the eighth month.

By year's end sales will be down 3 percent, but still a record, Kleinhenz said.

The report showed that:

--In Los Angeles County the median price soared an annual 21.6 percent to a record $445,670 as sales dipped 9 percent from a year ago.

--In Ventura County the median price increased 30.5 percent to a record $626,730 and sales fell 17.8 percent.

--In the high desert, which includes the Antelope Valley, the median price increased 45.3 percent to a record $236,890 and sales increased 12 percent.

--Orange County's market took a big hit. Sales fell an annual 36.8 percent and the median price rose to $649,590.

Statewide inventory increased to 4.3 months from two months a year ago. Inventory is measured by how long it would take to deplete the stock at the existing sales pace.

Last month the median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 26 days, the same as a year ago.

The median price increased in 98.6 percent of 427 cities and communities surveyed last month, the association said. Calabasas had the state's 10th highest median price, $935,000.

Michael Carney, director of the Real Estate Research Council at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, does not think the market will make that big a turn.

Interest rates would have to make a big move up, and that does not appear to be in the offing.

``There has been a lot of talk lately about slowing but I'm not convinced,'' he said. ``At this point I don't see a reason for slowing.''

Gregory J. Wilcox, [phone]

greg.wilcox(at)dailynews.com