The Los Angeles County housing market continued to be sluggish in January.

The median price dropped 3 percent to $305,000 compared to a year earlier, with Lancaster’s 93534 ZIP code claiming the lowest median at $88,000 and Beverly Hills’ 90210 ZIP code boasting the highest at $2.85 million, according to Redfin, a Seattle real estate firm.

The local numbers follow a decline in prices nationwide in the fourth quarter. Local sales were slow as well. Only 3,819 homes were sold in January, a 4 percent drop compared to the same month last year. Most transactions were in outlying neighborhoods, which have an ample supply of larger, cheaper homes. A county high of 77 homes traded hands in Antelope Valley’s 93535 ZIP code, while there were no sales in the 90211 ZIP code in Beverly Hills.

Listings also were down, with only 15,019 homes up for sale countywide, a quarter less than January 2011. Economists believe many would-be sellers nationwide are waiting for the market to turn around. Some good news from real estate website Zillow: it forecasts the L.A. County market will finally hit bottom this year.