Unemployment Down, Home Sales Up in February

The Ventura County economy continued charging into 1999 with the same gusto it exhibited in late 1998, racking up solid home sales and a low 4.9% unemployment rate.

Last month, 917 homes were sold in the county--up more than 26% from February 1998, according to a report by a La Jolla-based research firm.

The median home price also grew 9.5% over the same period last year to $219,000.

The figures include new and resale homes as well as condominiums.

“It’s just more of the same,” said John Karevoll, an analyst at Acxiom/DataQuick, which compiled the statistics. “The market is still pretty healthy, and we haven’t seen any kind of slowdown.”

The greatest home sales activity last month was in Ventura’s 93001 ZIP Code, which also experienced the most dramatic decline in median home price.

A total of 36 homes were scooped off the market in February--an 80% increase over the same period in 1998--at the comparatively low median price of $151,000, down from $246,000 a year ago.

The market in Thousand Oaks’ 91361 ZIP Code was also frenzied last month, as sales increased 73% over the year before, with the purchase of 64 homes. The median price in that area increased to $343,000, up from $255,000 in February 1998.

Camarillo’s 93010 ZIP Code also experienced a healthy 60% increase in market activity, with 53 homes sold at a median price of $232,000.

Several areas showed a slip in the median price of homes. Of the 21 ZIP Code areas in Ventura County, eight had either moderate or substantial declines in median home values.

In addition to Ventura’s 93001 ZIP Code, the median home price in Thousand Oaks’ 91360 ZIP Code, Oxnard’s 93030 and 93033 ZIP Codes and Simi Valley’s 93065 ZIP Code fell from between 1.8% and 17.3%.

Analysts, however, cautioned about reading too much into the declines, saying that the numbers do not reveal a trend toward a weakening market.

“It’s actually quite the contrary, because there’s nothing in the mix right now that says the market is going to soften,” Karevoll said. “All the numbers have been strengthening, and it looks like things should stay pretty strong through the year.”

He attributed the flagging median prices in some ZIP Codes to concentrated market changes, such as new housing tracts becoming available that can easily skew the numbers.

Similarly, the Ventura County labor market continued to show signs of strength with the addition of about 6,000 jobs in February, which helped ratchet down the unemployment rate to a near-record low.

According to the monthly job tally by the state’s Employment Development Department, the local unemployment rate stood at 4.9%, the lowest rate for February since 1990.

“Pretty much every industry grew last month,” said department labor market analyst Dee Johnson. “The numbers are really pretty strong, because in the past we’ve seen unemployment rates in the 6% to 7% range.”

Most of the new jobs--about 3,700--in February were in farming, where employment is notoriously fluid and largely follows seasonal plantings and harvests.

In the nonfarm sector, about 2,300 jobs were created, most of them in government, which bolstered its payrolls by about 1,700 positions.

The service industry also increased its work force with the addition of about 600 jobs.

Manufacturing, long considered an area that should react first to the economic cooling of the national and state economies, stayed on course with the hiring of about 300 new employees.

Job growth in construction, mining, transportation and public utilities remained unchanged from January.

The only sector that experienced a decline in employment was trade, which trimmed 300 positions.

In the more telling year-to-year comparisons, the local labor market demonstrated robust growth in key sectors, such as high-technology, manufacturing, construction and real estate.

Altogether, more than 8,900 jobs were added in Ventura County between February 1998 and February 1999, bringing the total local work force to 272,400.

Government employment experienced the greatest labor increase over the year with the hiring of about 3,100 people, mostly in education.

The service industry also clocked an impressive increase as payrolls shot up by more than 4.5%, with the creation of about 2,900 jobs.

“The economy is certainly riding high right now,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. “There’s been a lot of good, strong growth in the kinds of industries and sectors that you want to see it.”

As to whether residents can expect economic growth to continue, economists have long said no.

Although they don’t expect it to slide into a recession, economists believe gains made in recent years will begin to plateau and hold steady.

“What you have to realize is that it’s been so good for so long that it can’t really get any better,” Kyser said. “And even if that’s the case, I don’t think that we should expect any kind of downturn. . . . Things should hold steady and keep growing, just not at the kind of pace we’ve gotten used to.”

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Ventura County House Sales

February 1998

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City/ZIP Code Number of sales Median price CAMARILLO 93010 33 $206,000 93012 46 $212,000 FILLMORE 93015 NA MOORPARK 93021 53 $210,000 OAK PARK 91301 23 $243,000 OAK VIEW 93022 NA OJAI 93023 20 $245,000 OXNARD 93030 44 $220,000 93033 43 $145,000 93035 28 $180,000 PORT HUENEME 93041 23 $138,000 SANTA PAULA 93060 12 $153,000 SIMI VALLEY 93063 56 $206,000 93065 97 $218,000 THOUSAND OAKS 91320 46 $228,000 91360 49 $238,000 91361 19 $301,000 91362 37 $255,000 VENTURA 93001 20 $246,000 93003 38 $170,000 93004 35 $193,000 COUNTY LINE / CANYON AREA 90265 NA COUNTYWIDE 726 $200,000

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February 1999

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City/ZIP Code Number of sales Median price CAMARILLO 93010 3 $232,000 93012 46 $238,000 FILLMORE 93015 12 $180,000 MOORPARK 93021 41 $225,000 OAK PARK 91301 18 $290,000 OAK VIEW 93022 7 $200,000 OJAI 93023 23 $236,000 OXNARD 93030 62 $182,000 93033 37 $143,000 93035 44 $211,000 PORT HUENEME 93041 24 $125,000 SANTA PAULA 93060 29 $152,000 SIMI VALLEY 93063 83 $207,000 93065 126 $214,000 THOUSAND OAKS 91320 71 $289,000 91360 59 $224,000 91361 18 $385,000 91362 64 $343,000 VENTURA 93001 36 $151,000 93003 43 $199,000 93004 21 $227,000 COUNTY LINE / CANYON AREA 90265 2 $199,500 COUNTYWIDE 917 $219,000

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Source: Acxiom / DataQuick Information Systems

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Ventura County Jobless Rate

Jan., 1999: 5.8%

* Source: Ca;ifornia Employment Development Department