Orange County Housing Prices Still Tops

Existing home prices in Orange County are still higher than in any other metropolitan area of the country, and almost three times more expensive than in Buffalo, N.Y., the nation’s lowest-priced residential area, according to a National Assn. of Realtors (NAR) survey released Wednesday.

Half of the existing single-family houses sold in Orange County in the first quarter of 1985 cost more than $132,137, compared to a national median resale home price of $73,900. In contrast, the median-priced resale home in Buffalo sold for $46,900 in the same time period.

According to the NAR’s quarterly survey of 43 major metropolitan areas, the median resale price of Orange County homes in the first three months of 1985 slipped 1.1% from $133,454 a year before. Nationally, resale home prices increased 3.4%. However, Kathy Spillar of the California Assn. of Realtors, said the decline showed only that fewer large, and thus more expensive, houses with four or more bedrooms have sold so far this year in the county, compared to last year.

Sanford Goodkin, a national real estate analyst, contends that quarterly comparisons of home sales do not accurately reflect the value of Orange County housing, which he believes has kept up with the 3.5% rise in the consumer price index over the last 12 months. Still, he said that from the third quarter of 1980 through 1984, the residential real estate market simmered down after the previous decade’s hectic, double-digit inflation.

Goodkin and Spillar predicted that the county’s housing prices will increase faster later this year, responding to falling mortgage interest rates.

But much more dramatic home price increases are occurring in Boston, where last quarter the median home sales price was $108,600, a 21.4% jump from the first quarter a year ago, when the median price was $89,400. Spillar attributed the price surge to Boston’s “rapid economic growth and competition for housing stock.”