The full picture of home sales emerged June 16 with the May numbers reported by DataQuick Information Systems, which not only looks at the Multiple Listing Service, but also property records from the San Diego County Recorder’s office.

Of all the home sales last month, 36.3 percent were foreclosed properties — homes that had been foreclosed by lenders in the prior 12 months and then resold.

DataQuick reported that May home sales were down 12 percent on the year. Of those, new homes fell the most — more than 55 percent from 698 sold in May 2007 to 313 last month. The median price of a new home last month was $435,000, down 4.4 percent on the year.

Existing home sales, however, fell only slightly — by 3 percent for detached homes and 4 percent for condos. Prices, however, were less sanguine. The median price on existing homes was $420,000, down 24.7 percent from $557,500 a year ago, and for condos, it was $288,750, down 25 percent from $385,000 last year.

Existing home prices have fallen dramatically as foreclosed properties flood the marketplace and buyers can no longer qualify for larger so-called “jumbo” loans.

“What horsepower this market can generate right now is mainly fueled by bargain shopping, especially by first-time buyers and investors in inland areas,” said Andrew LePage, an analyst for DataQuick, a La Jolla-based subsidiary of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. that monitors real estate activity nationwide. “Meanwhile, sales remain especially slow in most higher-end markets, with jumbo mortgages (greater than $417,000) making up only a slightly higher percentage of all purchase loans in May than in April.”

Before the credit crunch hit in August, nearly 40 percent of Southern California sales were financed with jumbo loans. Last month, jumbos accounted for just 15.8 percent of sales.

The typical monthly mortgage payment that Southern California buyers committed themselves to paying was $1,664 last month, down from $2,364 a year ago.

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Nielsen Construction Re-Emerges: Looking over the San Diego skyline from Island Prime restaurant, Rebecca and Nielsen Pollack held an industry luncheon and coming out party June 16 for Nielsen Construction California Inc., which has been building up a pipeline of projects since reincorporating in 2003.

The family-owned business, launched in 1945 by S. Falck Nielsen, led the construction of SeaWorld San Diego and the City Administration Building.

Nielsen sold the company in the early ’90s to Dillingham Construction, which went bankrupt in January 2003.

That same month, grandson Nielsen Pollack reincorporated under the family name, along with partners Greg DeMattos and Brent Goodwin.