According to The Desert Sun’s Rosalie Murphy, Coachella Valley home sales jumped in March in March and prices firmed, with 1,022 Coachella Valley homes selling for a median price of $295,000, according to data from Irvine-based real estate research firm CoreLogic DataQuick. 

The median price per square foot, $173, reached its highest level since April 2015.

New homes, in particular, saw a jump in prices, with the 65 new builds sold in March selling for a median price of $456,000, up 30 percent year-over-year. 

Sales across all sectors rose year-over-year. Nearly 330 condos changed hands in March, up 14.7 percent from 2015. In terms of new construction sales, 65 homes sold in March, up 6.6 percent from 2015. And resale single-family homes saw 630 sales, a 1.9 percent rise from last year. 

Even though inventory dropped slightly from February to March, according to the California Desert Association of Realtors, there were still 6,467 units on the market in March, up about 46 percent year-over-year, according to CDAR's data. 

Michael McDonald, principal with local research firm Market Watch LLC, told the La Quinta Chamber of Commerce in April that he expects home sales and prices in 2016 to look a lot like 2015, with rising inventory across all sectors of the market translating into stable or dropping prices. As of April 1, McDonald said the Coachella Valley had more than eight months of inventory on the market. A "balanced market" generally has about five months of inventory.

McDonald added that the snowbird-heavy communities of Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage and La Quinta had 17, 14 and 12 months of inventory, respectively. His firm's data suggests that homebuying by people who live in the desert part-time has been slowing since 2007, and now that population is hardly growing at all.

Across the rest of Southern California, home prices in the six Southern California counties CoreLogic DataQuick tracks, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, climbed to $449,000 in March, up 5.6 percent year-over-year. CLDQ said that was the highest price since September 2007, just before the housing market crashed, when the regional median price was $462,000. Southern California's peak median price in 2007 was $505,000, reached in March, April, May and July of that year. The desert's peak was $420,000.

Across the region, 20,370 homes sold in March, a 34.5 percent jump from February and a 1.9 percent rise year-over-year.

The numbers at a glance:

Desert Home Sales In March 2016:   

Total sales: 1,022, up 6 percent from March 2015

New construction sales: 65, up 6.6 percent from 2015

Resale single-family home sales: 630, up 1.9 percent from 2015

Resale condo sales: 327, up 14.7 percent from 2015

Median price: $295,000, on par with 2015

Median price per square foot: $173, up 1.4 percent from 2015

Source: CoreLogic DataQuick 

To read Rosalie Murphy’s original article, courtesy of The Desert Sun, please visit: http://www.desertsun.com/story/money/real-estate/2016/04/27/corelogic-dataquick-march-2016/83218276/