Rates

lowed, dropping four basis points to a year-to-date low of 3.78 percent.”

Even a slight fall in the rates is bound to help po- tential buyers in the Bay Area where housing prices are out of sight — and have been consistently on the rise for more than five years.

In July, the median price of a single- family house in the nine- county region was $804,000, up 10.1 percent year- overyear, according to the CoreLogic real estate information service.

In Sant a Cla ra County, the median was $ 1,097,000, up 11.0 percent year- over-year. San Mateo County’s median sale price was $1,310,000, up 4.8 percent from July 2016, whi le Alameda County’s median was $825,000, up 11.2 percent, and Contra Costa County’s median was $585,000, up 8.3 percent.