April 22 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Michael McKee breaks down the numbers for March existing home sales on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.”

Median home prices last month increased 20 percent to $515,000, from $430,000 a year ago, and up $40,000 from February.

Scott Bridges

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Summer is coming and people want out of the Valley.

By the end of March, 1,520 previously-owned houses and condos were listed for sale, skyrocketing 50 percent from the 1,015 listed last year, according to the Van Nuys-based  Southland Regional Association of Realtors.

That’s a 2.8-month supply at the current sales pace but about half the number considered to be a balanced market, the group said. Sales generally increase between February and March before spring-summer buying season.

Analysts attribute the dip in sales to “rising prices and the absence of the foreclosed properties and short-sale deals that had been driving the market,” according to the  Los Angeles Daily News.

“Residential real estate has always had up and down cycles,” association president Roger Hance said in a statement. “But this time the recovery is taking longer because the up was so high for so long and the down was so profound.”

Median home prices last month increased 20 percent to $515,000, from $430,000 a year ago, and up $40,000 from February. Part of the reason, as the report notes, is that foreclosures accounted for only 2.7 percent of sales last month.

“It stands to reason that the market would slow down now that the bargains and deeply discounted prices are gone,” association CEO Jim Link said. “I’m optimistic, but I truly believe we’re in a holding pattern, waiting for buyers to accept that they cannot get bargain-basement prices and for sellers to understand there is a clear limit on their asking prices.”

Scott Bridges has covered the Los Angeles scene for over ten years as a journalist and food critic. Follow him on the Huffington Post