By Leon Worden / SCVNews.com

The Santa Clarita Valley’s single-family home prices reversed their downward slide in August and more of them changed hands last month even though few people are selling.

Condo prices weren’t quite as strong but more of them were sold in August than at any other time this year.

The typical SCV house sold for $375,000 in August after falling to $360,000 in June and $350,000 in July. Only four times in the last 20 months of 2011 and 2012 was the median price higher than $375,000.

The typical condominium changed hands for $176,500 in August – close to a 9-year low but better than July’s median price of $170,000.

Volume-wise, 220 single-family homes closed escrow in August, versus 203 in July and 222 in August 2011. Among condos, 103 changed hands in August – more than any other month of 2012, and 10 percent more than last August, when 94 closed escrow.

An all-time-low number of properties are listed for sale in the SCV, according the Southland Regional Association of Realtors.

Just 437 were listed on SRAR’s Multiple Listing Service – down 60.8 percent from a year ago. The previous low was set in July when 490 were listed.

“We’re hitting a point in the market where the limited inventory, particularly the falling percentage of bank-owned properties listed, are limiting choices for today’s growing number of buyers,” said Erika Kauzlarich-Bird, president of SRAR’s SCV Division.

“A decline in foreclosures, while reducing inventory, ultimately is healthy and leads to a rise in traditional equity sales,” she said. “Yet nearly a third of current owners still owe more than their homes are worth, making it difficult for them to list for sale, thus contributing to the dwindling inventory.”

SRAR CEO Jim Link said that while demand in the SCV is strong, “the local market, like most of California, is hindered by virtually no inventory, which translates into multiple offers on much of what is for sale.”