Quake Expected to Aid Some Housing Markets : Real estate: Some buyers from the San Fernando Valley seek firmer ground in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

The deadly Jan. 17 earthquake that rocked the San Fernando Valley has sent some home buyers trucking to the Antelope Valley looking for firmer ground and, safer, more affordable housing, local builders said.

The surprising number of shoppers and buyers are a relief to local builders and realtors, who feared initially that damaged freeways leading to and from the Antelope Valley might discourage Los Angeles-area residents, whose homes were damaged by the 6.6-magnitude quake, from looking farther north for housing.

“About 50% of our traffic this weekend was from outside the Antelope Valley. The previous week, all of our traffic was local,” said Scott Richter, president of Centex Homes, a new home builder based in Palmdale.

Centex salespeople in Palmdale sold five homes over the weekend, ranging from the low $100,000s to almost $200,000, Richter said. Three buyers were from the San Fernando Valley, including two people who were looking to move quickly into their new homes because their apartments were destroyed by the Northridge quake, he added.

“This weekend was a whole lot better than our original expectations. If we could sell five homes every week, it would be great,” Richter said.

His optimism was echoed by other Antelope Valley builders, who said that results from the two weekends after the quake suggest that things are not going to be as bad as originally feared.

“Traffic was up significantly at our two tracts in east Palmdale compared to the previous weekend. The majority of our visitors were from the San Fernando Valley,” said Ed Parker, vice president of sales and marketing for new home builder Epic Development in east Palmdale. “We sold three homes over the weekend: Two of the buyers were from the San Fernando Valley and the other from the Santa Clarita Valley. It’s looking promising.”

Parker said the Epic homes sold over the weekend ranged from $129,995 to $154,995.

The Antelope Valley Building Industry Assn. has urged its members to use the special FHA loan package for earthquake victims in their advertisements to lure potential buyers whose homes were damaged or destroyed in last month’s quake.

“We’ll be advertising next week, telling people they can get an FHA loan with zero down payment for a new home if their homes were damaged or destroyed in the quake,” said Richter. This special FHA loan package is good up to mortgages of $150,000, he said.

While most Southlanders think of the Antelope Valley as a desert community isolated by earthquake-damaged freeways, local businessmen and politicians are touting the area as a place where the future has already arrived, thanks to last month’s quake.

They are using the FHA loan package and newly expanded Metrolink as selling points to persuade earthquake victims to move to a “newer, more modern” Antelope Valley.

“The quake has also shaken loose a lot of things that had been on the back burner for a long time. These things are here now, and it’s up to us to make potential home buyers and commuters aware that the future has arrived here,” said Kimberly Maevers, director of governmental affairs for the Antelope Valley BIA.

Indeed, the Northridge quake shook more than just buildings and lives on Jan. 17; it also has cut through government red tape. Plans are under way to widen and improve the Antelope Valley Freeway, which connects the Antelope Valley to the Los Angeles Basin. And the earthquake forced transportation officials to buy additional Metrolink cars that increased the number of commuters from the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys more than tenfold.

Last week, Metrolink opened stations in Lancaster and Palmdale months ahead of schedule to save commuting time for Antelope Valley residents, part of an unprecedented effort to build a new transportation system for the area.

On Monday, Metrolink surprised hundreds of commuters by opening a Spartan but working station at Acton, on the Sierra Highway, south of Angeles Forest Highway. Metrolink officials said they are committed to serving the Antelope Valley for one year after the quake, but will maintain service thereafter if current ridership remains constant.

Simply put, the quake gave the housing market in both valleys an added boost over the long term, said local builders. They expressed confidence that housing starts in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys will grow even faster when the damaged freeways leading to and from those areas are repaired.

But for now, the task for Maevers and other builders is to persuade San Fernando Valley residents that the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys are not only affordable places to live, but accessible too, despite the nightly television pictures of gridlock on the damaged Antelope Valley and Golden State freeways.

“No question about it. You look at the newscasts every night and see how bad the traffic is going back to Santa Clarita and you know that’s got to turn off some people. But when the repairs (to the freeways) are completed later this year, and with the transit system already in place, we think it’s going to create a demand for housing in the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Vance Meyer, executive vice president at Pardee Construction, based in Westwood.

Pardee is working on two housing developments of 100 homes at the Northbridge development in Valencia.

Homes under construction in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys are built according to newer and stricter earthquake safety codes. According to Meyer and other builders, the new homes fared very well in the earthquake. Builders are using the stricter building codes as selling points for the newly constructed homes.

Richter said San Fernando Valley residents visiting homes built by his company throughout the Antelope Valley are “asking a lot of questions” about the new building codes.

“Look at it from the standpoint of the buyer. He can buy a used home in the San Fernando Valley that was weakened by the quake, or he can buy a new home for about the same price or cheaper up here and know that it was built according to the latest codes,” said Richter.

Joe Heflin, president of the Antelope Valley Board of Realtors, said that affordable new and used homes in the Antelope Valley already makes the area an attractive place for home buyers. The quake will benefit an already prosperous housing market in the Antelope Valley, he said.

“Long term, it will make more people in the quake area look at the Antelope Valley as an option. Housing is already cheaper up here, and now we have Metrolink, which makes the commute into Los Angeles much more enjoyable. Those are two powerful incentives for people to move here,” said Heflin.