Mercury News - "Bay Area home sales, prices still sliding" (2-15-07)

"Home sales in the Bay Area continued a two-year-long slide last month, when fewer homes were sold than during any January since 1996, a real estate information firm reported Thursday. The median price of all new and resale houses and condominiums sold in the nine-county region was $601,000, a 1.5 percent drop from the same period last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems. The number of homes sold dropped 4.1 percent to 6,168, the smallest year-over-year decline since March 2005, indicating that the weak local housing market may be moving toward a recovery."