State's Housing Sales, Prices Rise in Nov.

State’s Housing Sales, Prices Rise in Nov.

By JULIE TAMAKI

Dec. 30, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

California’s housing market continued to show strength in November, with sales of existing homes up 11% from last year and prices up 5.1%, a real estate trade group said Tuesday.

The gains indicate that most regions of the state have weathered the first shock wave from the Asian financial crisis, said an economist for the California Assn. of Realtors. Concerns about stock market volatility, which in previous months produced some hesitation in the housing market, also appear to have subsided.

“People have breathed a sigh of relief and have gone forward with their plans,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the association’s vice president and chief economist. “That’s why you’ve seen an unusually robust market for the end of the year.”

November sales of existing homes in California rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 632,670--an 11% jump from the 569,920 sales pace recorded in November 1997, the realty group said.

The association also reported that the median sale price rose to $200,490, up 5.1% from the November 1997 median of $190,760.

November’s strong showings also indicate that Southern California’s housing market recovery, which previously lifted the Westside and Orange County, rolled this year into the Riverside and Palm Springs areas, where sales have been particularly strong, Appleton-Young said.

“You don’t have the same [levels of activity] in Orange County because they were the engine of Southern California’s economic growth so their housing market has been active for a longer period of time,” she said.

While November was a busy month in terms of sales for real estate agent Steve Reddy of Irvine-based Hanu Reddy Realty, he said that homes sold for about the same in November as they did during the summer.

Where the market is headed is hard to say, Reddy added, noting that activity has slowed down quite a bit from last December’s figures.

“It’s kind of surprising, given the low interest rates,” Reddy said.

Rick Rokuskie, manager for Coldwell Banker Ambassador in Riverside, reported a similar scenario. Rokuskie said that while November was “one of our best months ever,” business has slowed this month.

It’s a big change from a year ago, when he was working in the Corona-Norco area: “Last December there was a lot of activity that generated a lot of sales in January.”

Nationwide, sales of existing homes were up 2.7% in November, and are projected to hit a record 4.78 million for all of 1998. The national median price for an existing home was $131,800 in November, up 6% from a year ago, the National Assn. of Realtors said. Strong sales and rising prices have prompted the trade group to boost its projection for this year to 4.78 million sales, up 13.5% from last year’s record 4.22 million.

Regionally, sales of existing homes rose 5.9% in the South, 4.2% in the Midwest and 1.5% in the Northeast. Sales in the West fell 3.8%.

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Home Price Points

Price Leaders and Gainers

The 10 cities and communities with the highest median home prices in California during November:

City: Median home price

Atherton: $1,650,000

Hillsborough: 1,425,000

Los Altos Hills: 1,395,000

Monte Sereno: 1,239,000

Beverly Hills: 1,025,000

Pacific Palisades: 860,000