COUNTYWIDE : July Home Sales Fall 2nd Straight Month

Home sales in Ventura County dropped in July for the second straight month but were still much higher than a year ago, the California Assn. of Realtors reported Monday.

After a spring boom in which sales surged for three consecutive months, escrow closings fell 6.6% in June and 6.7% in July, the association reported.

But July sales of 599 houses were still 38.3% higher than the total for the same month in 1990, when only 433 houses sold near the bottom of the real estate slump.

“Now there is much more flexibility with home sellers,” said Janey Messmore, president of the Ventura Board of Realtors. “People have become realistic and are offering incentives.”

Chief among them are lower housing prices, the real estate group said.

The county’s median selling price was $234,300 last month, a 3.1% drop from June and 2.4% less than in July, 1990.

Real estate prices in the county were the fifth highest in the state.

The top four were Santa Clara County, $281,020; San Francisco Bay, $269,000; Monterey County, $246,430, and Orange County, $244,890.