County New-Home Sales Off 17% in ’92 : Development: Local home-building industry suffers its worst year since 1989 in key indicator for economy.

New-home sales in Orange County--a key indicator of the county’s economic health--fell about 17% this year from 1991’s total to make the year the worst for the home-building industry since 1989, a prominent real estate consulting firm reported Tuesday.

Figures released by Meyers Group, a regional real estate consultant, show that through Dec. 15 a total of 5,983 new home and condominium sales contracts were reported by builders in Orange County, down 17.1% from 7,215 sales for the same period in 1991.

In 1990, the first full year of the housing slump, 6,809 sales contracts for new homes and condos were opened in Orange County.

The Meyers tally excludes contracts that were canceled during the year but includes those that were opened but not concluded with a legal sale by the end of the 12-month period.

This year’s contracts are running about 35% behind those for 1989, the last year of the county’s housing boom. That year, builders reported 9,169 sales of new home and condos.

That such a sluggish sales pace is being set in a time of record low interest rates and falling housing prices is an indication that consumers have spent most of the year worrying about job security and are approaching 1993 with the firm conviction that salaries won’t be increasing much.

It also shows that consumers think builders will be forced to make even steeper cuts in housing prices in coming months and are holding back to take advantage of potential distress sales, said Buck Panchal, the Meyers senior consultant who prepared the report.

The median price of a new detached home in Orange County dropped to $292,990 in the fourth quarter, down $76,000, or about 20.6%, from the high of $368,990 in the final quarter of 1989 and off 9.5%, or $31,000, from a year ago.

Panchal found it especially noteworthy--and discouraging--that the last quarter’s sales contracts for 1,060 units fell 2.3% below the total for the same period last year and hit a three-month low that “confounds those who were certain--or hoping--the market had already reached bottom.”

Fourth-quarter sales contracts also were down 27.5% from the third quarter, but that steep decline is typical; sales almost always fall off dramatically during the winter holidays.

The poor showing for the end of this year, however, does mean “that the market in Orange County (now) has an even deeper hole to climb out of,” Panchal said.