Sales of Million-Dollar Homes Rise by More Than One-Third
With fortunes rising from Wall Street investments and dot-com businesses, more people in Orange County bought the biggest homes on their block last year.
Sales of million-dollar homes in Orange County grew by more than one-third from 1998, to 867 last year, according to Acxiom/Dataquick Information Systems Inc., a La Jolla real estate research firm. By comparison, the number of all homes sold in Orange County rose by less than 1% in 1999.
But it was the Bay Area that propelled California’s million-dollar home sales to a new record last year. Statewide, 7,553 homes went for $1 million or more in 1999. That was up 41% from the year before, when 5,366 such properties were sold.
In the Bay Area, million-dollar home sales surged by a whopping 68% last year, going from 1,840 the year before to 3,093. Such sales in Santa Clara County, home to highflying Silicon Valley, surged from 575 to 1,073, up 87%, the most for any major county statewide.
The Bay Area accounted for about 40% of the state’s million-dollar sales in 1999, double its share from a decade ago.
Overall, sales of million-dollar homes in Southern California went from 3,186 in 1998 to 3,988 last year, a 25% increase, DataQuick reported.
Statewide, the most expensive home sold last year was a 20,344 square foot Malibu home that went for $27 million in December. The largest home was a 26,674 square-foot, nine-bedroom, 13.5-bathroom home on 5.45 acres in La Jolla, which brought in $15.9 million.
DataQuick said there were 367 condo sales in the million-dollar category last year, mostly in West Los Angeles and San Francisco. The median sized million-dollar home was 3,128 square feet, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms.
The median price per square-foot for all million-dollar homes was $424 last year, up 8% from $392 a year ago, DataQuick said.
About 17% of the buyers paid cash.
In Newport Beach, 134 million-dollar homes were sold last year, up 52% from 88 the year before. The priciest one: $3.7 million.
Laguna Beach had 99 million-dollar home sales last year, only one more than a year ago, and the most expensive house sold for $7 million, DataQuick said.
In Orange County, homes priced at $1 million or more rose to nearly 2% of all transactions last year, breaking the previous record set a year ago.
Homes in the million-dollar range no longer carry the distinction they once did. Across the Southland, they are being mass-produced in dozens of new subdivisions. One example is Watermark, a Newport Coast project under construction by Taylor-Woodrow Homes Inc. Starting price: $2.4 million.
But the urge to splurge on mansions has extended beyond Orange County and California. In Hawaii, where the economy has been in a prolonged slump, a Costa Mesa home builder has begun erecting estates around a new golf course called the Uplands of Mauna Kea.
Andrew L. Youngquist Construction has started the $100-million project on 40 acres on the Kona coast. Prices will exceed $1 million for each of the custom-designed single-family homes, which offer views of the Pacific Ocean and Maui.
Though models aren’t done yet, 20 of these 3,000-square-foot homes have been sold and are expected to be finished this year. The project’s first phase has been sold mostly to people from other states who are employed in high-tech industries.
“The economy over there isn’t hurting as bad for people who can afford million-dollar homes,” said Rick Youngquist, the company’s vice president.
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High Prices
The number of million-dollar home sales in Orange County has grown faster than overall sales. They made up 1.7% of the market last year, up from 1.3% the previous year. All Homes
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1998 1999 %change All Sales 50,027 50,154 0.3%
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Homes $1 million or more
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1998 1999 %change Sales 638 867 35.9% Percentage of market 1.28% 1.73%
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Source: Acxiom/Dataquick Information Systems Inc.
