Valley home prices flat

Home prices have begun to creep up in most of California, but not in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

The Bay Area, in particular, saw a bounce in October, with the median price 6.8 percent higher as compared to September, according to figures supplied by MDA DataQuick. The median price in the nine-county Bay Area in October was $375,000, a $10,000 increase over September.

In Stanislaus County, the median price of $140,000 was flat month-to-month. Merced, at $115,000, also was unchanged, while the median price San Joaquin County rose to $167,500 in October from $164,000 in September.

The silver lining with the plunge of home prices over the past two years is that affordability has climbed dramatically. In Stanislaus County, median-income families could afford 84.5 percent of the homes sold in July, August and September.