Home Sales Drop 16% in October
October home sales in Ventura County dropped 16% from the previous month, indicating a seasonal slowdown and the cooling of a housing market that has soared for much of 1994, according to a report released Friday.
Whether the 13-month real estate recovery is actually losing steam is unclear, analysts said, adding that sales historically dip with the beginning of the school year and with the distraction of the holidays just over the horizon.
Despite the drop in October transactions, home sales so far this year were 16.4% higher than during the same 10-month period in 1993, according to TRW REDI Property Data.
County sales last month also reflect a slight increase--about 3.5%--over those in October, 1993. The figures show notable increases in sales in Thousand Oaks, Ventura, Moorpark, Camarillo and Oxnard.
“The slowdown in October sales was anticipated and is due to the usual seasonal factors,” said Nima Nattagh, an analyst with TRW REDI. “Long-term trends in sales activity, however, show clearly that Southern California’s housing market is experiencing a modest recovery.”
The year’s overall sales increase, fueled by depressed housing prices and still-low mortgage interest rates, averaged about 17% throughout the six counties in Southern California.
Noting the upward surge of interest rates, more than two percentage points in a year, Nattagh said: “What remains to be seen is whether they’re going to keep going up for the remainder of this year. If that does happen, I think you will find it will have a dampening effect on sales activity.”
Last month, 730 houses were sold in Ventura County, a sharp drop from the 869 homes sold in September. The average sales prices also dropped, from $233,599 to $232,490.
Of October’s drop in sales, Ventura Assn. of Realtors President Judy Hoag said, “I’d rather wait and see where we are in November. . . . I really don’t think that (this) is any indication that the sky is falling.”
Gene Baird, president of the Conejo Valley Assn. of Realtors, said Thousand Oaks area agents have not reported a slackening of sales. He added that the inventory of homes for sale seems to be down, a drop he said should bode well for sellers.
“I think we’ll start to see an increase in the prices of properties that are listed in the months to come,” Baird said.
While there may be fewer listings in Ventura, houses there seem to be selling quicker, perhaps because sellers are pricing them lower, Hoag said.
She said, too, that sellers might be responding to buyers who are spooked by the specter of rising interest rates. “I think maybe there is a little fear in the market,” she added.
Bob Harrison, broker at Coldwell Banker-Town & Country in Ventura, offered a slightly different spin.
“I think the threat that interest rates are possibly going to rise may be encouraging more buyers into the market,” he said. Analysts have predicted a boost in the federal prime lending rate next week.
Even with the increase of sales since September, 1993, Nattagh said he sees no evidence of housing prices actually going up.
He speculated that the steadiness results partly from the high volume of below-market foreclosure sales, the lingering hangover of the four-year real estate recession, which is still dragging down housing prices.
