Home Prices Up Nearly 27% in Southland

Existing home prices in the seven-county Southland area rose 27.6% from April, 1988, to April, 1989, reaching an average of $248,700, according to Michael Carney of the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California.

The council’s semi-annual home price survey is the fifth in a row showing escalating double-digit home-price inflation in Southern California, he said. The largest annual percentage increases were recorded in Los Angeles County--up 31% to an average $312,400--and Ventura County--up 29.2% to an average $232,300, he added.

Based on 214 Houses

Based at Cal Poly Pomona, the council conducts unsold housing inventory and home price surveys every quarter for Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. The market prices are based on appraisals of 214 sample houses in the seven counties.

The home price index for the seven counties reached 523 in April, indicating that home prices in the sample have, on average, increased 5.23 times over their 1975 prices. The highest index for a specific home was 1,163, for one of the Beverly Hills houses in the sample. The April appraised value of $2.5 million was 11.63 times its value in 1975, $215,000, Carney said.

Greatest Appreciation

The indexes range from 357 in Riverside County to 635 in Ventura County, Carney said. The Ventura County index and the Los Angeles County index (630) indicate that those counties have had the greatest housing appreciation since 1975, he added.

The Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino had the lowest housing appreciation, respectively, 3.57 times and 3.75 times their 1975 values, he said. San Diego County’s index stood at 404; Orange County’s was 490 and Santa Barbara County’s was 499.