REAL ESTATE

Housing Market: Underscoring the housing market problems affecting companies such as Hammond’s is this just-released report from the Meyers Group, a Newport Beach new-home marketing and consulting firm.

For October to December, 1991, new home builders in Orange County sold just 1,085 homes, up 2% from the depths of the industry’s recession in the fourth quarter of 1990 but down 29% from the July to September, 1991, period.

The steep drop in sales from the previous quarter did little, however, to adjust the county’s high housing prices. The median base price for a single-family home sold in the October to December period was $323,950, down a mere 1% from the third-quarter median of $327,250.

One reason prices did not fall is that developers have been trying to sell their existing supplies of homes before starting on any new projects. And the strategy has been fairly successful.