Despite heavy rains and a slower pace of activity, the median home price in Los Angeles County rose to $424,000 in February, up 20.5 percent from $352,000 in February 2004, according to a new report.

The figure represented a 2.4 percent increase from the $414,000 median home price L.A. County in January, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

However, the pace of sales continued to slow. The 7,056 new home sales and resales in Los Angeles County during February were 8.6 percent below the 7,723 transactions in February 2004, and 7.6 percent below the 7,633 homes sold in January.

Heavy rains over the past few months may have dampened foot traffic, said DataQuick President Marshall Prentice in a statement. “If that happened and some sales activity was put off, we could be in for a very strong March,” he said, adding: “The strength of the market does still surprise us, although we still think appreciation rates are due to come down.”

A similar trend played out throughout Southern California, where the median home price in the six-county region increased 21.1 percent to $425,000. The number of sales were down 1.3 percent from January and down 7 percent from February 2004.

The surge in prices is especially significant because last year’s February had been the strongest DataQuick said it had in its statistics, which the firm has been collecting since 1988.

Year-over-year home price increases in Southern California have been above 20 percent for 13 months in a row, according to DataQuick.