State Home Sales Fall for 4th Month

California’s troubled economy pushed existing home sales downward in September for the fourth consecutive month, the California Assn. of Realtors reported Friday.

At the same time, a national real estate trade group reported that nationwide sales of existing homes tumbled last month for the third month in a row to an eight-month low.

Statewide, 379,240 existing single-family detached homes closed escrow during September on an annualized basis--down 7.2% from a revised annualized rate of 408,500 sales in August, the California trade group said.

September’s sales were 5.5% lower than the revised September, 1990, annualized pace of 401,200 homes.

“Many consumers are unwilling to make a major purchase during a time of uncertainty,” said CAR’s vice president of research and economics, Leslie Appleton-Young. Recent declines in interest rates have failed to boost economic activity, and as a result, consumer confidence remains relatively low, Appleton-Young said. “However, even with September’s sales decline, home sales during the first nine months of this year remained well ahead of our statewide sales projection for all of 1991,” Appleton-Young said.

Statewide, the median price of an existing single-family detached home slipped 0.8% from a revised $200,520 in August to $198,920 in September.

Existing home sales in the Los Angeles region declined 12.1% from August on a non-seasonally adjusted basis but were up 6.0% from September, 1990. The region’s median home price rose 1.2% from $219,060 in August to $221,590 in September. September’s figure was 8.1% higher than a year ago, when the median-priced home sold for $205,000.

Nationally, all regions of the country posted losses, nudging sales of existing single-family homes down 4.3% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.11 million. It was the lowest rate since January and 1.6% lower than the September, 1990, rate, the National Assn. of Realtors said.

“It points to a heck of a weak recovery and says housing is not going to be the locomotive for growth,” said economist David Berson of the Federal National Mortgage Assn.

The average rate for a 30-year conventional fixed-rate mortgage was 9.01% in September, compared to 9.24% in August. That is a full percentage point lower than a year ago, the association said.

Home prices also fell. The median price--the figure at which half the homes cost more and half less--fell 2.3% from August to $99,800.

But that was 5.7% higher than in September, 1990.

The trade group said low interest rates have brought in first-time buyers but have not been enough to persuade those already owning homes to buy more expensive ones.

Both Berson and Harley E. Rouda, the Realtors president, attributed the weakness to a collapse in consumer confidence in the economy.

“Housing is available and there’s no credit crunch” for mortgage loans, Berson contended. “The problem is the unwillingness of people to borrow now. It’s a real confidence problem.”

“When consumers decide that the economic recovery is here, housing will come back strong,” Rouda said. “Until then, the people who have to sell their homes will be the ones in the market.”

“People who already own and are thinking of moving up tend to be less sensitive to rate movements and more sensitive to economic indicators than people buying their first homes,” Rouda said.