April House Sales in Ventura Plummet 38% : Real estate: Experts blame bad weather. Interest rates and possible base closure also cited.
Housing sales in Ventura County took a nose dive last month, plunging nearly 38% from figures reported a year earlier.
Countywide, 568 homes closed escrow in April, down from 916 in April of 1994, according to TRW-REDI Property Data. Nearly 19% more homes were sold during the first four months of 1994 than this year.
Industry analysts and agents chalked up some of the misfortune to the bad weather in Ventura County earlier this year. Heavy rains in late January and through February kept all but the heartiest buyers from shopping.
“The buying decision was made in February on the homes that closed escrow in April,” said Nima Nattagh, an economist with the Riverside-based TRW. Still, Nattagh said the drop is the largest in recent memory, and more than foul weather is at work.
Typically, home sales drop the first two or three months of every year, Nattagh said. But by April, the industry should begin to pick up steam.
“I don’t think anybody expected a dramatic fall like this,” he said. “It makes me feel that something more fundamental is at play.”
Oxnard real estate agent Bob Krakover attributed some of the slowdown to consumer uncertainty fueled by the Point Mugu Navy base being placed on a closure list. Home sales plunged 43% in Oxnard, from 150 to 86.
“As long as the base is on the list, people will hold back from buying,” Krakover said. But Krakover predicted a turnaround this summer as interest rates stabilize.
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The Federal Reserve Board has indicated that it will not raise interest rates in the coming months after several hikes late in 1994 and into early 1995.
Those rate hikes--designed to stave off inflation--also kept prospective buyers from shopping during the first part of this year, Nattagh said.
“We are seeing the fruits of unpopular but proper steps on the part of the Fed,” said Ali Akbari, an economics professor at Cal Lutheran University.
“If we sustained the rate of growth we enjoyed at the end of 1994, we were doomed to an overheating economy,” Akbari said. “That genie of inflation would be out of the bottle and it is a very difficult genie to get back into the bottle.”
Akbari also said that the real estate market did not experience the same levels of recovery as most of the other segments of the economy.
“The housing sector never truly got out of the recession,” he said. “This has always been a soft segment of the economy and it never regained the same momentum it had [in pre-recessionary days]. It is not a harbinger of another recession.”
Real estate agents on both sides of the county readily agreed.
Shannon Wolf, president of the Simi Valley-Moorpark Assn. of Realtors, said she expects the housing market to pick up during the summer as interest rates remain stable and the weather returns to normal.
“We are looking for a big, big increase this summer,” she said.
Simi Valley experienced the biggest drop in the county when 45% fewer homes were sold in that city in April than the previous April.
But like the rest of the county, the average selling price increased slightly, giving sellers a little bit of good news. The average home in Ventura County sold for $233,685, up from $226,926 in April of 1994.
But the average cost of a Ventura County home is still far below pre-recessionary days. In 1991, the median was more than $250,000.
“There’s still a substantial inventory available, and that is holding prices down,” Krakover said.
Nattagh said this drop in home values has also played a part in slowing the real estate market.
“People simply have lost equity in their homes and don’t want to sell,” he said.
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Still, Krakover sees a glimmer of light at the end of the real estate tunnel, with more expensive homes selling at a brisk pace.
“Down at the beach, things are picking up,” Krakover said. He said his firm handled $10 million worth of transactions over the weekend, mostly in the luxury and resort end of the market.
He said volatile interest rates coupled with a cooling economy have kept some first-time home-buyers out of the market. He expects that to change as the weather improves and interest rates remain static.
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Ventura County House Sales
April, 1994 April, 1995 Number Average Number Average City/ZIP code of sales price of sales price CAMARILLO 93010 63 $241,246 28 $248,154 93012 33 $346,172 20 $334,975 93066 1 $66,000 2 $165,000 FILLMORE 93015 11 $157,909 6 $155,333 MOORPARK 93021 57 $226,516 29 $268,948 OAK VIEW 93022 7 $119,571 4 $143,000 OJAI 93023 26 $276,712 22 $247,524 OAK PARK 91301 54 $241,898 29 $280,172 91304 0 -- 1 $110,000 OXNARD 93030 80 $191,100 42 $194,962 93033 36 $148,029 27 $149,804 93035 34 $242,074 17 $257,844 PORT HUENEME 93041 24 $163,125 12 $132,458 SANTA PAULA 93060 19 $163,531 18 $144,500 SIMI VALLEY 91307 5 $506,250 0 -- 91311 1 $205,500 0 -- 93063 56 $187,429 31 $189,419 93065 108 $203,986 69 $224,584 THOUSAND OAKS 91320 33 $251,968 25 $235,185 91360 61 $226,069 33 $229,333 91361 16 $311,600 11 $318,150 91362 54 $355,491 54 $312,193 VENTURA 93001 35 $216,258 22 $284,800 93003 64 $204,169 33 $176,688 93004 37 $199,676 28 $219,411 COUNTY LINE/CANYON AREA 90265 0 -- 1 $500,000 COUNTYWIDE * 916 $226,926 568 $233,685 YEAR TOTALS 2,823 $226,198 2,292 $228,079
* The ZIP codes for three houses bought in Ventura County were unavailable.
Source: TRW-REDI Property Data
