SINGLE-FAMILY home sales in California almost doubled in September, rising above an annual rate of 500,000 for the first time in more than two years, as a plunge in prices boosted buying, the state's Realtors group said yesterday.

The number of existing single-family detached homes sold in California last month was 502,190 on an annualized basis, up 97 percent from 255,340 a year earlier, the California Association of Realtors said. The last time the number of houses sold in a single month was more than 500,000 on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis was in April 2006, when 516,965 sold.

Home sales in the most populous United States state were helped by plummeting prices, according to Bloomberg News. The median price was US$316,480 in September, a 41 percent drop from a year earlier, the Realtors said.

The increase also "owes as much to market weakness a year ago," when the availability of mortgages began to plunge, said William E Brown, president of the California Association of Realtors. "We expect the market to register significant year-to-year percentage gains in the coming months as current sales are compared against extremely low numbers that prevailed during the fourth quarter of last year," he said.

The association's Unsold Inventory Index for single-family homes dropped to 6.5 months in September from 16 months a year earlier. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate. The median amount of time it took to sell a California home was 46.1 days in September, down from 56.7 days a year earlier.

The rise in sales comes as the number of homes lost to foreclosure totaled 79,511 in the third quarter - more than triple the year-earlier figure, real estate research firm MDA DataQuick said.