Realtors Expect ’91 Sales to Be Weak : Housing: Sales statewide may drop 15%, while the average value will remain flat.

California’s cooling housing market will grow even colder next year, with sales across the state dropping about 15% and the value of a typical home remaining flat.

That’s the gist of a surprisingly gloomy forecast released Thursday by the California Assn. of Realtors, a normally upbeat lot when it comes to predicting home sales and prices.

“The economy is soft, and the big run-up in home values that we’ve had over the past few years has simply put homeownership out of the reach of a lot of people,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the realtor economist who compiled the forecast.

About 400,000 existing single-family homes will be sold in the state next year, according to the trade group’s forecast, down 14.9% from the 470,000 houses expected to be sold in 1990.

The median price of a home in California won’t rise at all in 1991, the report said. Half of all homes sell for more than the median price and half sell for less.

“We project that the median price next year will be $195,600, which is the same figure we now project for 1990,” Appleton-Young said.

The economist said the median won’t rise because sales of less expensive homes in inland areas will be strong while sales of pricey homes in the coastal areas will continue to slow.

“When sales of lower-priced homes outnumber sales of high-priced houses, it drags down the overall median,” she said.

Although the trade group’s forecast was one of the most pessimistic it has issued in a decade, it could have been even gloomier.

Earlier this year, the trade group had predicted that sales in the state would drop about 10% in 1990 but that the median price would rise a healthy 9%.

After a string of disappointing sales reports earlier in the year, the trade group drastically revised its forecast to say prices would rise only 1.5% in 1990.

The report was recently revised again to say there would be no appreciation in the median-priced home this year. If weren’t for the second revision, the median price of $195,600 predicted for next year would actually be lower than the price predicted for this year.

Although prices for single-family homes are expected to remain flat next year, Appleton-Young said values of condominiums should rise about 3% “because condos are an affordable alternative for many Californians who have been priced out of the single-family home market.”