A lower inventory of bank-owned houses continued to push up home sales and prices in Inland Southern California last month. Both Riverside and San Bernardino counties saw the median home price-- where half sell for more and half for less-- increase by $10,000 from October to November, a real estate information service reported.

It was the second consecutive month that Riverside County's median price increased, in November reaching $200,000, but nonetheless a decline of more than 9 percent from a year earlier, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. San Bernardino's median price last month was $160,000, down not quite 14 percent from November 2008.

For the 17th consecutive month, home sales increased in Southern California compared to a year earlier, showing a nearly 15 percent year-over-year gain in November. DataQuick noted that sales have been stoked in recent months by a federal tax credit for first-time buyers, robust investor activity particularly in the inland counties, super-low mortgage rates, the availability of FHA financing and hoped-for bargains.

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"This market is still really lopsided. Foreclosures and short sales are huge factors. There's still not a lot of discretionary buying and selling outside the more affordable markets," said MDA DataQuick President John Walsh.

Riverside County posted 3,745 home sales last month, which was an increase of less than 1 percent from a year earlier and one of the smallest year-over-year gains in the Southern California region. San Bernardino County had 2,751 sales, up more than 15 percent in a year.

Real estate experts say home sales are being limited by banks, which are holding back distressed homes from the market, possibly to prop up prices or in an effort to use mortgage modification to reduce foreclosures.

"There would be more sales if there was a greater supply of foreclosed properties," said Leslie Appleton Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.

"The demand is still real strong," said Gene Wunderlich, a real estate agent in southwest Riverside County. "Everyone in the business is singing the blues. They have plenty of buyers but nothing to sell them."

In recent months, Wunderlich said, foreclosures for sale have become outnumbered by houses marketed as "short sales" by owners seeking to persuade lenders to accept a sales prices that won't fully pay off their mortgages.

Short sales are much more difficult to accomplish than buying a house directly from a bank, he said.

In Riverside County, foreclosures represented 52.6 percent of sales in November, down from 57.1 percent in October, while in San Bernardino County, foreclosures were 55.8 percent of November sales, down from 56.9 percent the previous month.

"It makes it easier for the median price to rise if fewer foreclosures are selling," since foreclosures tend to be discounted more steeply, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage. Another trend, he said, is an increase in sales of newly built homes.

From October to November, new-home sales increased by 17 percent in Riverside County and more than 32 percent in San Bernardino County.

LePage said there is no guarantee that the recent improvement in home prices and sales will continue. For example, future rounds of foreclosures could drive prices down, he said.

"I don't think the economic backdrop is conducive to widespread appreciation," he said. "We are still climbing out of a really deep recession. A lot of people lost their jobs."

Also contributing to the uncertain future of housing, he said, is what will happen when the government withdraws first-time buyer incentives and allows mortgage interest rates to rise or if FHA-insured mortgages become harder to get as that agency tries to curb its rising mortgage defaults.

Reach Leslie Berkman at lberkman@PE.com or 951-368-9423.