Slight gain in California home sales prices falls off

Easy come, easy go.

Three months of modest home price gains disappeared in August.

Stanislaus County's median home sales price dropped back to $135,000 last month, the same as it was in May, according to preliminary data released late Thursday by MDA DataQuick.

Sales volume also dipped in Stanislaus, throughout the Northern San Joaquin Valley and most of California.

Only 746 Stanislaus homes closed escrow in August, compared with about 890 in June and July. But as before, nearly two of every three homes sold previously had been foreclosures.

The unsold inventory of bank-owned property is drying up, according to Andrew LaPage, who analyzes statistics for DataQuick.