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Southern California's housing market settled into a typical seasonal pattern in September with sales falling from August, but prices continued making big gains from a year earlier, a market tracker said Wednesday.

Last month the median home price across the six-county region increased 21.3 percent to $382,000 from $315,000 a year earlier, said La Jolla-based DataQuick. The median price did slip $3,000 from August, the first month-to-month decline since February. It was basically flat all summer.

However, the median has increased year-over-year for 18 consecutive months, DataQuick said. The increases have been in the 20 percent range for the last nine months as distressed properties have been weaned from the market and sales of more expensive homes increased.

Last month sales increased 7 percent to 19,112 properties from 17,859 a year earlier. Sales fell 17.1 percent from 23,057 in August as the summer buying season wound down.

"We've seen a fairly normal downshifting in the housing market this fall. Couple that with the rise in inventory, higher mortgage rates and the ongoing gradual drop in purchases by investors and cash buyers, and it's no wonder prices have leveled off in recent months," DataQuick president John Walsh said in a statement.

What is not yet clear is how the government shutdown, which ended on Wednesday, impacted the housing market. That won't be known for several months, Walsh said.

In San Bernardino County during September the median https://independent.academia.edu/ReidJackson