RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

‘Bouyant’ Housing: Marketing consultant Tim Hamilton thinks news about the housing industry has been entirely too downbeat lately.

Despite the credit crunch, layoffs by big builders and developers, sales dips and May’s big drop in building permit activity, “the market really is still pretty buoyant,” the Laguna Niguel consultant maintains.

To bolster his point, he offers the following:

Vintage Communities in Newport Beach has sold 48 new homes in the past two months in its Foothill Ranch development; Warmington Homes recently bought $9.5 million worth of residential lots in San Clemente; brokers handling lot sales in the Hidden Ranch project near Lake Forest had several offers for a package of 108 lots, including two for the full $10.2-million asking price ($95,000 for each lot); a firm selling 80 lots in Chino Hills had received offers from 22 area builders as of last week; A-M Homes/Southern California sold six homes in its Hillsboro development in exclusive Cota de Caza during June--a pretty decent pace considering selling prices of $350,000 to $450,000, and the Irvine Co. sold 150 condominiums for $120,000 to $200,000 in the past three months.