Countywide : Economic Rebound Near, Speakers Say

Speakers at a real estate conference in Oxnard said on Wednesday that there are signs that the prolonged Southern California recession is bottoming out.

But outside the conference at the Financial Plaza Hilton several participants declared that Ventura County, and the rest of Southern California, may not see tangible evidence of an economic upturn until 1994 at the earliest.

More than 100 real estate professionals, specializing in commercial and industrial property, participated in the forum. It was sponsored by First American Title Insurance Co. of Ventura County and the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

Several speakers said that certain real estate barometers, such as a drop in vacancy rates, show that a recovery is around the corner.

“Southern California is lagging behind the rest of the country in coming out of the recession, but the rebound is imminent,” said Reed R. Henkelman, an executive with CB Commercial Real Estate Group of Ventura County.

“The whole timing of this forum is to say we’ve hit bottom” in terms of the recession, said one of the conference coordinators, Rick Newton, a First American Title marketing executive.

However, Norman Titcher, a pioneer developer in Ventura County who attended the forum, said the local economy is in bad shape because of a lack of affordable housing to attract workers. Additionally, he said, bureaucrats had put in place shortsighted policies that made it more difficult to construct homes and commercial complexes.

“Cities here are basically no-growth,” he said. County supervisors and city officials, he said, “should get off the dime and do something to get affordable housing” into Ventura County.