A Record June for Resale Homes
The Southern California housing market broke records in June, when the median price of a resale home climbed to a new high and more money than ever was spent buying such homes, a real estate information company said Monday.
Led by rising prices in Los Angeles County, the median cost of an existing single-family home in the six-county region rose to $204,000 last month, according to figures released by Acxiom/DataQuick, a La Jolla-based company that tracks real estate transactions.
The Southern California region hit its previous peak in May 1991, when the median reached $196,000.
In addition to the record median, more Southern California homes were sold in June than in any other month during this decade. A total of 29,305 homes were sold in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, Acxiom/DataQuick analyst John Karevoll said. The record number of sales for a single month was 32,968 in June 1989.
And finally, home buyers spent a total of about $6.7 billion on real estate in June, the highest one-month figure ever for the region. The previous high, nearly $6.3 billion, was reached in July 1998.
“Easily there’s more money flowing . . . now than in any other time before,” Karevoll said.
Despite the robust market, Los Angeles County homes have still not regained their pre-recession values, but significant price increases for the county in June helped nudge the regional median to the new high.
The median price of an existing single-family home in Los Angeles County rose 5.1% from $195,000 in May 1999 to $205,000 last month. Los Angeles accounts for more than a third of real estate transactions in the region.
“Los Angeles was our behemoth which pulled everybody back,” Karevoll said. “It took a mighty jump here from May to June.”
“Median price” means half the homes sold for less than that figure and half sold for more. It is considered a more accurate representation of overall prices, since the “average price” is often skewed by very high home prices.
The median price for all Los Angeles County homes--resale, condominiums and new houses--reached $199,000 in June. The figure is up 4.7% from the same month a year ago but still falls short of the May 1991 peak of $203,000.
Median condominium prices in Los Angeles fell 3% since June 1998 to $160,000, although the number of units sold jumped 10.1%.
When adjusted for inflation, prices in Los Angeles County have just begun their recovery from the recession of the early 1990s, said G.U. Krueger, deputy chief economist for the California Assn. of Realtors.
“We still have a lot of room left to grow as far as home prices are concerned, if we still have economic growth,” Krueger said.
In Orange County, the median price of a single-family resale home rose to $265,000 in June, up 5.2% from June 1998. The median price of new homes slipped 10.8% from last June to $296,000, although sales activity increased 9.1%. Orange County condo prices rose 3.2% to a median of $160,000.
The median price of condos, resale and new homes in Ventura County rose 11.4% to $244,000. The San Bernardino County median inched up 2.3% to $133,000, and Riverside’s median rose 11.3% to $158,000.
Michael Carney, a professor of finance and real estate at Cal Poly Pomona, said interest rates are likely to remain mostly stable and that Southern California home prices will keep rising, but at a slower rate than in the last two years.
“By the end of the year 2000, every area of Southern California will be back to where they were in 1990,” Carney predicted.
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Home Prices Rebound
The median price of a single-family resale home in Southern California reached a record high of $204,000 in June. But home values in some counties, including Los Angeles, have yet to attain pre-recession levels. Median prices in June of each year, in thousands of dollars:
Los Angeles County
‘89: $205,000
‘99: $205,000
*
Orange County
‘89: $237,000
‘99: $265,000
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San Diego County
‘89: $178,500
‘99: $220,000
*
Southern California
‘89: $187,000
‘99: $204,000
*
Riverside County
‘89: $123,000
‘99: $155,000
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San Bernardino County
‘89: $118,500
‘99: $128,000
*
Ventura County
‘89: $249,000
‘99: $239,000
Source: Acxiom/DataQuick
