By Dan Levy

(Bloomberg) -- San Francisco Bay Area home prices rose for the first time since November 2007 as fewer foreclosures were sold, MDA DataQuick said.

The median price for houses and condominiums increased 4 percent in October from a year earlier to $390,000, the San Diego-based research company said today in a statement. The number of homes sold rose 4.2 percent to 7,933 for the nine- county region. Prices gained 6.8 percent from September.

Sales of homes priced over $500,000 made up 36 percent of transactions, up from a low this year of 23 percent in January. Foreclosure sales were 32 percent of the total, the lowest since June 2008, according to MDA DataQuick.

“The regional price statistics mainly reflect the fading of the foreclosures and the uptick in high-end activity in recent months,” John Walsh, MDA DataQuick’s president, said in the statement. “The big picture is that prices in many areas appear to be bouncing along bottom. Whether that bottom is permanent is the subject of endless debate right now.”

The decreasing share of foreclosure sales shows that lenders are choosing to pursue short sales, where a home is sold for less than the outstanding mortgage, or modifying loans to keep borrowers in their homes, MDA DataQuick said. Those options are cheaper than foreclosing on a property.

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