California Home Sales Take 14.5% Dip in June : Real estate: The national decline is 2.9%. The numbers reflect consumer anxiety over the slumping economy.

In a drop reflecting continued consumer anxiety over the sluggish economy, home sales in June fell nationwide for the third consecutive month, paced by a huge plunge in California, real estate groups reported Monday.

Despite mortgage rates more than a full percentage point lower than a year ago, seasonally adjusted sales of single-family homes in California fell 14.5% from May to 393,700 units, according to the California Assn. of Realtors, a Los Angeles-based trade group.

Nationwide, home sales dropped 2.9% in June to a seasonally adjusted 3.36 million units--the largest drop in almost a year, according to the Chicago-based National Assn. of Realtors.

“Today’s attractive mortgage interest rate environment has been overshadowed by a sluggish California economy and weak consumer confidence,” said Chuck Lamb, president of the California group.

The seasonally adjusted figure represents the number of homes that would be sold in a year if the sales pace for the monthly period were to continue for 12 months. The projection also takes into account seasonal variations that often produce fewer homes sales during cold winter months than in the spring and summer.

Without seasonal adjustment, the estimated number of existing homes sold last month increased 10.3% nationally to 353,000 after rising 1.3% in May.

In California, the San Francisco area, Sacramento and the Central Valley region showed sales declines, mostly because rising home prices choked off new purchases. In places where prices fell--such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura--month-to-month sales rose about 7%.

Despite the overall drop in home sales, the realtor groups expressed hope that activity would pick up now that interest rates have dropped further from their low levels in June.

Nationwide home sales began to rise earlier this year but stalled in June. “We’ve been experiencing a stall within a rise,” said John Tuccillo, NAR’s chief economist. “We expect things to improve,” he added.

Interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages stood at 8.22% nationally for the week ended July 17, according to HSH Associates, a Butler, N.J.-based publisher of mortgage information. That compared to a fixed rate of 8.59% last month and 9.73% in June, 1991.

Weekly surveys by the Mortgage Bankers Assn. in Washington show that the declining rates may be having a positive effect. Mortgage applications for homes rose 13% for the week ended July 17 and 14.4% a week earlier, the association reported.

Still, compared to the go-go 1980s--when a robust economy and strong housing demand from baby boomers produced an explosion in home sales--housing analyst Sandford R. Goodkin said today’s housing “marketplace is lousy . . . .”

“Consumers are even more convinced that there is a deep recession than they were” before the beginning of the Gulf War 18 months ago, when sales went into a deep freeze, he said. “This is a uniquely troubled real estate market.”

The national realtors’ group said home sales were strongest in the Midwest, climbing 1.9% in June, followed by the South, where they remained unchanged from May’s 1.24 million seasonally adjusted annual rate.

Sales skidded 6.4% in the West to 730,000 units and 6.5% in the Northeast to 860,000 units.

Existing Home Sales Seasonally adjusted annual rate, million of units June, ‘92: 3.36 May, ‘92: 3.46 June, ‘91: 3.48 Source: National Assn. of Realtors