Santa Clarita Home Sales Boost Region’s ’98 Tally

An end-of-the-year buying spree in the Santa Clarita Valley helped boost 1998 sales of new homes in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys by nearly 15% compared with 1997, a real estate research firm reports.

For the final quarter ending Dec. 15, new-home sales rose in the Santa Clarita Valley by more than 45% compared with the third quarter, according to a report by the Meyers Group. That gain helped offset a nearly 14% drop in fourth-quarter sales in the San Fernando Valley, and resulted in a 25.1% gain in sales for the combined region, compared with the third quarter.

The region posted a fourth-quarter gain of nearly 13% over the final quarter of 1997.

As the final figures for the year were tallied, the Santa Clarita Valley accounted for the lion’s share--nearly three-quarters--of all new home sales in the two areas. More than 1,830 new detached houses and condos were sold in the Santa Clarita Valley in 1998, pushing that area to its best showing since 1989 when 2,597 homes were sold.

During 1998, 747 new homes were sold in the San Fernando Valley, the best full-year figures since 910 new homes sold in 1993.

Experts said that given the relative lack of available land in the San Fernando Valley, new-home building in the area will continue to lag development in less-populated areas.

“The reason is that the San Fernando Valley, for the most part, is already built out,” said Bob Bray, national director of marketing for the Meyers Group. “There are some in-fill sites, but in general, there’s not that much land for builders to build on.”

Bray contrasted the pace of building in the San Fernando Valley today with 1991, when there were 103 active projects. These days, there are 17.

“Builders are pretty entrepreneurial,” added Bray. “They’ll find sites in the [San Fernando] Valley. But we’ll be hard-pressed to see them at the level we did in the ‘80s through ’91.”

The home-buying binge on the home front matches spending patterns across the country.

Nationwide, new-home purchases surged to a record high in November, and, even without December’s figure, 1998 ranked as the best year for new-home sales since the government began keeping track 35 years ago.

As sales levels rise, so do prices.

Figures from the Meyers Group show that the median price for a detached single-family home rose by nearly 23% in the fourth quarter of 1998 to $296,900 from $241,880 in the 1997 fourth quarter.

Bray said he expects local demand to remain strong. If so, it would contrast with a predicted decline in the rest of the nation.

The National Assn. of Home Builders expects Americans to buy fewer new homes this year. The trade group projects that 781,000 new single-family homes will be sold in 1999, down from 1998’s projected 870,000 homes, a record.

Glen Yamamoto, a project director with Pacific Bay Homes, is keeping his fingers crossed that strong demand will continue.

“We’re hoping that if interest rates will stay favorable, ’99 will stay hot in this Valley,” said Yamamoto, whose Newport Beach-based company ranks as the No. 1 Santa Clarita Valley-area builder on the Meyers Group list. The company has ongoing projects in Canyon Country, Saugus and other areas of Santa Clarita.

“We’ve had a tremendous year in the Santa Clarita Valley,” he said.