For First Time, Sales of Condos and Townhouses Lead the Way

For the first time in Orange County’s history, new-home buyers are gobbling up condominiums, town homes and other attached structures faster than the traditional single-family home, a real estate research firm said Friday.

And that marks the end of an era. From now on, it is likely that condos will outnumber stand-alone homes on the county’s residential real estate menu.

During the fourth quarter of 1989, 54.3% of all residential structures sold in the county were condos or town homes, said Steve Johnson, vice president of the Meyers Group in Corona.

“There have been a few periods where there was parity and each type sold in about equal numbers,” he said. “But what the builders and industry consultants have been promising for more than a year has finally come to pass.”

Real estate experts have been saying that soaring costs will make the single-family home a luxury item in the county and that most buyers will be forced into more-affordable attached homes.

In other findings, the Meyers Group report--which surveys only new-home sales--echoed previous studies that said new-home sales have fallen off in the county during the past year and that end-of-the-year home prices were up from the last quarter of 1988.

The median price for a new single-family home in the fourth quarter was up 13.8%, to $333,950, from the $293,453 reported in the fourth quarter of 1988. But the median price fell 4.6% from the $349,312 reported in the third quarter of 1989.

For condos and townhouses, however, prices followed sales and went up. The $184,900 median price for these units for the fourth quarter was 10.8% higher than a year ago and 6.9% higher than the $172,965 reported for the third quarter of 1989.

During 1989, Johnson said, new-home sales in Orange County tumbled nearly 14%, partly because of consumer resistance to skyrocketing prices but also because building activity slowed in the aftermath of the 1988 construction frenzy spurred by the ill-fated campaign for limits on new development.

In all, 9,169 new homes were sold in the county last year, down from 10,434 in 1988.

Single-family homes saw the sharpest decline, with 4,998 units sold last year, down 20% from 5,997 in 1988. Sales of condos and town homes were down slightly: the 4,171 units sold representing a 4.9% drop from 4,375 units sold in 1988.