REAL ESTATE : Housing Price Data Falls Bit Short of Giving Full Picture
For several years now, the monthly resale housing price statistics compiled by the California Assn. of Realtors have led to blazing headlines about how pricey homes are in Orange County.
There’s no denying that homes here--new and resale--are expensive, but the realtor group’s figures--no matter how big and bold the headline that screams them out--should be taken as nothing more than guidelines.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. March 9, 1990 BRIEFCASE REAL ESTATE
Los Angeles Times Friday March 9, 1990 Orange County Edition Business Part D Page 5 Column 1 Financial Desk 6 inches; 184 words Type of Material: Column; Brief; Correction
Realty Boards: A mea culpa is owed the California Assn. of Realtors.
Last week, it was reported here that the association, which issues widely publicized monthly median sales price figures for resale single family residences around the state, has increased the number of Boards of Realtors that report to it. In Orange County, the Anaheim Board of Realtors was included for the first time.
The report incorrectly said that the cities of Fullerton and Santa Ana--which contain a lot of lower-priced homes--were not included in the statistics for Orange County, while realty boards from the pricier areas of the county were, thus skewing the median price statistic for Orange County toward the high side.
But Fullerton and Santa Ana are, in fact, included in the statistical base for Orange County.
The West Orange County Board of Realtors, which includes the cities of Buena Park, Westminster and Garden Grove, doesn’t report to the state association. But neither does the South Orange County Board, which covers the coastal area from San Clemente to Laguna Beach.
A spokesman for the state association said that the group doesn’t exclude local realty boards and would like to have them all reporting to it.
In all, seven of the county’s 11 Boards of Realtors report monthly sales figures to the state association.
Descriptors: HOUSING -- ORANGE COUNTY HOUSING PRICES REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY -- ORANGE COUNTY STATISTICS CITIES HOUSING SALES
Among other things, the association’s numbers are based on reports from just 80 boards of realtors throughout the state. That means the reporting from some counties can get mighty thin.
In Orange County, just eight of the 11 boards supply information to the association. It was just seven boards until the Anaheim Board of Realtors was added to the list last month.
And most of the local realty boards that report to the state group are in the county’s most expensive housing markets, which tends to skew the median higher than it might otherwise be.
In addition to the newly added Anaheim board, the list includes the realty boards of East Orange, North Orange, Irvine, Newport Beach, Saddleback Valley and Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley (a combined board that counts as two).
Conspicuously absent are boards representing such places as Fullerton, Buena Park, Westminster and Santa Ana, where many of the county’s older and least-expensive homes are located.
