Orange County’s spring homebuying season rocketed into high gear last month, with prices and sales already outdistancing last year’s buying frenzy, figures released Monday show.

The median price of an Orange County home – or the sale price at the midpoint of all transactions – was $625,000 in the year ending in March, up 6.8 percent and coming within $20,000 of the all-time high reached at the peak of the housing bubble in June 2007, Irvine-based data firm CoreLogic reported.

If prices continue going up at 4 percent or more, the median will top that record by June.

Sales, meanwhile, ticked up to the highest level in a decade for the month of March.

CoreLogic reported 3,181 transactions closed last month. While that’s up just a 0.8 percent from a year ago, it’s still the highest March tally since 2006.

“The market is definitely continuing to improve,” said Huntington Beach Re/Max agent Brian Kamenca. “It’s not cooling off.”

In Southern California as a whole, the median home price rose 5.6 percent to $449,000, the region’s highest median in 8 ½ years, CoreLogic figures show. Home prices in the six-county area are $56,000 below the all-time high of $505,000.

CoreLogic reported 20,370 homes sold in the region, up 1.9 percent from 2015 and the most for a March since 2013.

Prices were up in all six counties, with Riverside posting the region’s biggest price surge: Up 8.2 percent to $330,000.

Sales rose everywhere but Los Angeles County, which had a 1.4 percent drop from 2015 levels. The biggest sales gain occurred in San Bernardino County, where transactions jumped 7.7 percent to 2,528 deals.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7734 or jcollins@ocregister.com