There were 34,239 new and existing homes and condos sold in California in August, down 14% from last year, according to MDA DataQuick, a San Diego-based real estate data provider. Home sales were 2.7% from July as well. The median price paid for a California home in August reached $260,000, up 4.4% from last year but down 3% from the previous month. It was the tenth month in a row of increases from the previous year. Before that upward trend, prices in California experienced year-over-year declines for 27 months in a row, more than two years. Of the existing homes sold in August, 35.6% were properties that had been foreclosed on within the last year, down from 42.8% a year ago but relatively flat from the 35.2% rate in July. The all-time high came in February 2009, when 58.5% of existing sales had been in foreclosure. The average monthly mortgage payment for California homeowners was $1,077 in August, down from $1,093 last year. Adjusted for inflation, August average payments were 50.1% below the 1989 previous real estate cycle peak and 59.5% below the current cycle’s peak in 2006. Write to Jon Prior.