July Home Sales, Prices Rise at Record Pace
Southern California’s housing market continued to sizzle in July, as inland communities joined the regional real estate recovery, propelling area home sales and prices upward at the fastest pace of the decade, according to a report released Friday.
Sales of all homes--including condominiums--in July soared 31.4% from the same month last year, to 29,303 properties, according to Acxiom/DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla-based real estate research firm.
The year-over-year sales increase for the region--which includes Los Angeles, Ventura, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino and Orange counties--was the highest since January 1989, when sales jumped 36%.
Meanwhile, the median price of all homes sold in July rose 11.9%--the largest such gain of the decade--from the same month last year, to $188,000, according to DataQuick.
“We have a solid market, with price and sales increases in virtually all home categories and in all geographic areas,” said Mike Ela, DataQuick president. “While San Diego and Orange County have been the two hot spots, Los Angeles has turned around nicely and the Inland Empire is picking up steam.”
In Los Angeles County, year-over-year sales of all homes in July jumped 26.4% and the median sales price increased 10.5%, to $190,000. The Los Angeles condominium market was particularly brisk, as sales shot up 32.9% from the same month last year and the median sale price rose 13.8%, to $165,000, according to DataQuick.
Orange County continued to reign as the region’s real estate superstar. The median home sales year-over-year price in July climbed 15.9%, to $229,000, while sales increased 35.9%.
The July sales figures provided more evidence that the region’s housing recovery--which began about two years ago in coastal Los Angeles and Orange counties--has now begun to sweep inland. San Bernardino County, for example, reported a 26.3% year-over-year increase in sales in July as the median sales price rose 6.6% to $130,000. In Riverside, sales were up 33.4% and the median price moved up nearly 7%, to $140,000.
Jeanette Young, a real estate agent for Century 21 King in Chino, said it had been frustrating to tell home sellers that price increases and active trading had not reached the Inland Empire. “They would look at us as if we were lying,” she said.
While sales remain slow in many communities, Young said she noticed a pickup in sales and prices earlier this year in higher-priced neighborhoods, such as Chino Hills. So far this year, Young has sold 89 homes--almost as many as she sold in all of 1997.
“Everything you list sells right away,” Young said of the Chino Hills market.
Inland housing markets in Riverside, San Bernardino and northern Los Angeles counties are getting a boost from an “affordability migration” from pricey coastal areas, said G.U. Krueger, an economist at the California Assn. of Realtors.
“Home prices have risen so much in Orange County and are now rising very fast in Los Angeles County,” said Krueger. “The Inland Empire has . . . emerged as an affordable alternative.”
