Ventura County Home Sales Up 38% in Quarter

New home sales in Ventura County surged 38% in the fourth quarter of 1992, compared with a year earlier, but sales for all of last year countywide were 15% below 1991 levels, the Meyers Group reported Monday.

The Los Angeles-based real estate research and consulting firm said new home sales in Ventura County totaled 234 units in the fourth quarter, up from 170 in the fourth quarter of 1991 but down from 244 in the third quarter. Also, new home sales for 1992 in the county fell to 1,036 units, from 1,222 a year earlier.

The year-to-year quarterly increase was due largely to a strong pickup in sales of attached homes, which increased 49% from the third quarter. For all of 1992, attached home sales in Ventura County totaled 428 units, the highest in three years.

In the fourth quarter last year, the median price of a detached single-family house sold in Ventura county was $295,000--down 2% from $299,500 in the same period a year earlier. (Median price means half the homes sold for less than $295,000 and half sold for more.)

By contrast, the median price of an attached home sold in Ventura County in the fourth quarter was $166,950, also 2% less than a year earlier.