Topics / BUSINESS : 1st-Time Buyers Help Fuel Rebound in Home Sales : Figures rise nearly 16% from same period last year. Prices show a decline, but there are signs that could change.
The morning after the McIlwains’ real estate agent put their three-bedroom home on the market, the couple found a buyer waiting at the curb.
Eugene and Dolores McIlwain accepted the second of the three offers that week, about $3,000 more than their asking price of $159,950.
The 1,244-square-foot house is on a quiet street lined with one-story homes built in the early ‘50s.
“Not a real fancy neighborhood,” said Eugene McIlwain, but walking distance from schools and shopping. He says he expected they’d sell their home in West Covina within a month or two.
But he didn’t expect that once the deal was already in escrow, people would continue to knock at their door, or that about 30 realtors representing buyers would come to see it.
Quick-sale scenarios like the McIlwains’ are becoming more common as the real-estate market in the San Gabriel Valley and the rest of Southern California transforms from a buyer’s to a seller’s market, said Barbara Leland, president of the East San Gabriel Valley Board of Realtors.
In the first three months of this year, 3,214 homes sold in the San Gabriel Valley, up by nearly 16% over the same period in 1993. April sales were up by nearly 17%. Leland attributes the increase to a panic by first-time buyers who have seen interest rates rise and are rushing to purchase homes before they go up again. Buyers also are encouraged by lenders’ incentive loans that require minimal down payments.
In addition, she said, homeowners are pricing their houses more realistically, attracting more buyers. Compared to 1993, housing prices were down 5.4% in the San Gabriel Valley for the first three months of this year despite the livelier sales.
But Joy Carothers, president of the West San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Realtors, said prices seem to be coming back as houses sell more quickly in her region. If she finds a house for someone and then tries to locate a comparable one for the same price, she can’t do it, she said.
For now, the growth in sales reflects the number of homes sold to first-time buyers, who last year made up more than half the market, according the California Assn. of Realtors.
Going, Leland says, is the time when first-time buyers had the luxury of poking around for the best deal and talking desperate sellers down to below their asking price.
Looking at one week in April, Leland said the number of homes on the market in her region went down from 3,681 active listings in 1993 to 2,750 in 1994.
Fewer homes are on the market because they sell more quickly, not because there are fewer offerings, she said. During the last week in April, sales were up by 24% from the same period last year in the eastern San Gabriel Valley.
Real Estate in the San Gabriel Valley
An increase in home sales in the first three months of the year shows that the real estate environment is changing from a buyers’ market to a sellers’ market, according to one local agent. Here are the number of houses sold in the first three months of 1994, along with the median price, expressed in thousands of dollars:
No. Sold No. Sold Median Median 1993 1994 % change 1993 1994 % change Alhambra 284 307 8.1 $174 $159 -8.6 Altadena 68 131 92.6 $213 $177 -16.9 Arcadia 111 126 13.5 $319 $312 -2.2 Azusa 67 63 -6.0 $139 $133 -4.3 Baldwin Park 82 99 20.7 $148 $126 -14.9 Claremont 62 73 17.7 $225 $208 -7.6 Covina 122 142 16.4 $161 $162 0.6 Diamond Bar 128 147 14.8 $228 $214 -6.1 Duarte 49 27 -4.1 $148 $143 -3.4 El Monte 78 95 21.8 $143 $143 0.0 Glendora 105 59 -43.8 $195 $168 -13.5 La Canada Flint. 67 73 9.0 $451 $405 -10.2 La Puente 364 424 16.5 $173 $165 -4.6 La Verne 53 69 30.2 $204 $199 -2.5 Monrovia 65 71 9.2 $199 $208 4.5 Monterey Park 39 41 5.1 $204 $189 -7.4 Pasadena 206 247 19.9 $251 $229 -8.8 Pomona 207 216 4.3 $130 $138 6.2 Rosemead 62 63 1.6 $179 $163 -8.9 San Dimas 66 85 28.8 $210 $216 2.9 San Gabriel 76 111 46.1 $216 $209 -3.2 San Marino 53 47 -11.3 $572 $556 -2.8 Sierra Madre 15 26 73.3 $264 $265 0.4 South Pasadena 28 41 46.4 $302 $274 -9.3 Temple City 48 69 43.8 $211 $194 -8.1 Walnut 108 133 23.1 $256 $242 -5.5 West Covina 159 229 44.0 $179 $166 -7.3
No. Sold 1993 No. Sold 1994 % change Average Average TOTALS 2,772 3,214 15.9 $225.7 $213.4
Ave. change TOTALS -5.4
Source: Dataquick Information Systems. Dataquick did not have figures for Bradbury, Industry, Irwindale and South El Monte.
