Home Sales Plunge 10% in February, Report Says : Real estate: Rising interest rates and rainy weather are blamed for last month’s decline when compared to the same period in 1994.
Battered by the Federal Reserve Board and an exceptionally wet winter, Ventura County realtors saw home sales in February drop a full 10% from a year earlier, a report recently released showed.
“I think the higher interest rates have had an impact,” said Nima Nattagh, an economist who prepared the report for TRW-REDI.
“The weather played a part, too,” said John Anderson, president of the Ventura Assn. of Realtors. The rainy weather kept shoppers from touring potential buys, Anderson said. Nattagh said he expects the declining sales to continue through March and April. He also predicted that sales in the first four months of this year would be between 7% and 10% lower than the same period in 1994.
Realtors closed deals on 486 homes last month, down from 538 in February, 1994. The average sale price dropped 5% over the same period.
The average home sold for $221,872 last month, down from $234,361 last year.
Ventura and Oxnard helped drag down the numbers as each city posted significantly lower numbers in February than the same period last year.
“You’re going to find the market up and down for a while,” Anderson said.
Nattagh’s figures show 49 homes closed escrow in Ventura last February, compared to 77 in 1994.
Oxnard registered 79 sales in February of this year and 92 in the same period the year before.
In the east county, Simi Valley bucked the trend as 96 homes closed escrow there last month.
That’s 14 more than sold in February, 1994.
Meanwhile, 101 homes closed escrow in Thousand Oaks, down 10 from last year.
The bad news was delivered a month after surprisingly good numbers were posted for January.
Houses sold that month increased 17% over the prior year, the first jump in nearly six years.
But Nattagh dismissed January’s increase as a statistical blip.
“January and February are historically hard to figure,” he said.
UC Santa Barbara economist Mark Schniepp agreed that interest rates were to blame for the sagging housing market.
However, he said indications that the Fed has no further plans to raise interest rates--coupled with the slow, overall recovery of the Ventura County economy--could mean the housing market should improve by year’s end.
“It will be a ragged kind of year,” Schniepp said. “But we forecast that you will see housing prices turn around.”
He said more sales in less expensive neighborhoods is helping keep the prices soft in Ventura County.
“But demand is coming back,” he said.
Local real estate agents blamed the adverse weather on the slowdown.
“Most of these houses went into escrow in January,” said Mary Hall, president of the Conejo Valley Realtors Assn. “It is a typically slow month, and we did get our share of rain in January.”
She said she and her colleagues were busy showing houses the past weekend and predicted a stronger spring and summer.
“Things should get busy,” she said.
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Ventura County House Sales
Month,1994 Month,1995 Number Average Number Average City/ZIP code of sales price of sales price CAMARILLO 93010 36 $257,029 30 $213,839 93012 13 $385,115 18 $265,500 93066 01 $550,000 04 $397,375 FILLMORE 93015 05 $171,582 12 $162,955 MOORPARK 93021 50 $232,649 40 $259,600 OAK VIEW 93022 02 $151,500 03 $149,667 OJAI 93023 10 $295,614 15 $292,733 OAK PARK 91301 23 $273,523 16 $305,607 OXNARD 93030 50 $187,450 37 $184,931 93033 22 $150,921 26 $147,920 93035 20 $306,425 16 $230,511 PIRU 93040 01 $57,700 01 $125,000 PORT HUENEME 93041 21 $131,816 07 $159,286 SANTA PAULA 93060 12 $163,333 17 $142,088 SIMI VALLEY 91307 03 $239,697 01 $480,000 91311 01 $211,500 00 $N/A 93063 33 $198,031 37 $184,931 93065 45 $204,930 58 $186,888 THOUSAND OAKS 91320 32 $242,339 17 $226,382 91360 33 $214,236 42 $234,071 91361 18 $304,011 14 $314,893 91362 28 $345,964 28 $343,554 VENTURA 93001 10 $306,850 14 $195,857 93003 43 $212,293 20 $192,579 93004 24 $229,583 15 $226,367 COUNTYWIDE *538 $234,361 486 $221,872
* The ZIP codes for two houses bought in Ventura County were unavailable.
Source: TRW-REDI Property Data
