Southland Home Values, Sales Rise as Market Continues Turnaround
Southern California home values rose broadly during the first quarter, with sales prices increasing throughout the six-county region as the real estate market continued a slow but steady turnaround, according to a sales survey released Friday.
The first-quarter results, which do not fully reflect the impact of a recent run-up in mortgage rates, showed a 1.9% increase in the median sales price from the same three-month period last year, according to Acxiom/DataQuick, a real estate research firm. The median sales price for Southern California was $161,000 during the January-to-March period.
“We are seeing more buyer confidence,” said real estate broker Dave Raposa, who sells older homes in the historic West Adams section of Los Angeles. “The more [expensive] houses are moving again.”
The price gains reported in the three-month period were modest but spread regionwide. The increase in the quarterly median price ranged from only 0.5% in Orange County to 2.5% in Los Angeles and 4.3% in Ventura.
Regionwide sales during the quarter rose 5.4% over the year-ago period to 47,090 properties.
For the month of March, the median sales price in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties rose 1.9% from the same month last year, to $163,000, according to Acxiom/DataQuick. The number of all homes sold in March rose 2.8% to 18,370.
Despite the promising sales and price results, many real estate observers are keeping an anxious eye on mortgage rates. After bottoming out in mid-February, fixed-rate loans have shot up about a quarter of a percentage point and broken through the 8% level after the Federal Reserve Board raised rates last month.
On Friday, the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds, which set the pace for fixed-rate mortgages, rose sharply from 7.10% to 7.16%--the highest level since last July.
It’s not clear how home sales and prices will hold up if home loan rates keep climbing, said Tom Lieser, director of the UCLA Business Forecasting Project.
For now, however, the spike in rates has not scared off buyers. In many cases, people have jumped into the market to beat future increases, agents say.
The interest rate hike “didn’t affect us one bit. The buyers are still there,” said Glendora real estate broker Marty Rodriguez, whose office has sold about 20 homes so far this month.
In Mission Viejo, real estate agent Joan Wilson is working for more customers who want to sell their existing homes and trade up to a more expensive property in the area instead of leaving the state. “That’s an indication of an improved market,” she said.
In the San Fernando Valley, real estate agent Stephanie Vitacco has not seen prices rise appreciably but has seen the market stabilize after a long decline. Homes for sale spend less time on the market and often receive multiple offers. For example, the seller of one Tarzana home priced less than $200,000 was recently besieged with 21 offers, Vitacco said.
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Housing Recovery
Southern California home prices rose during the first quarter of 1997 after several years of decline. First-quarter median sales prices, in thousands:
1997: $161
* Source Action/DataQuick
