Valley Home Prices Fall in October, but Still Near Record High

Sale prices for single-family homes in the San Fernando Valley slipped again in October from the record $255,000 set in August, but posted a gain of nearly 20% over last October to end the month at $245,000, a report issued Monday shows.

At that level, the median price (the point at which half of the homes sold for more and half for less) tied the previous Valley record set in June 1989, before recession and the Northridge earthquake slammed home values to the mat throughout the region.

The $245,000 median was down $2,000 from the September posting, to mark the second straight monthly decline, according to figures from the Southland Regional Assn. of Realtors.

Still, the median, a number closely tracked by economists and homeowners, was the highest October on record for the Valley and was nearly 80% higher than the national October median price of $138,200.

Despite the sale price slippage and a big drop in sales activity for October, real estate experts said the market in the Valley, and in Los Angeles County, remains strong.

“There is a normal seasonal decline from September to October,” said John Karevoll, an analyst with San Diego-based DataQuick Information Systems. His figures, which include homes sold by the owner without a real estate agent, put the countywide median price for October at $210,000, up 9.4% from last year.

“The overall trend is up, and there’s no doubt that that’s going to continue,” said Karevoll, adding that the county should post a record median price for the year. “It’s just a question of how strong that trend will be.”

Year to date, the median price for a single-family home in the Valley is about $20,000 higher than last year, with some areas, particularly the southern Valley, posting even greater gains.

Figures released Monday by the California Assn. of Realtors, the statewide counterpart of the Valley-based group, showed that Tarzana was among the 10 communities statewide to post the largest increase in median home price.

That put the Valley community in the company of tony locales like Carmel/Pebble Beach, Los Gatos and Laguna Beach.

A CAR spokesman said the median price in Tarzana in October was $412,500, up 17.9% from September and up a whopping 58.5% from the $260,230 figure posted in October of last year.

That does not surprise Dan Verdin, vice president and sales manager at the Tarzana office of Fred Sands Realtors, who’s seen a lot more activity recently among properties priced above $750,000.

“I’m seeing a great deal of activity in the estate properties,” said Verdin, who’s been in the Tarzana office for four years. “I’m showing that our average sales price in this office is up by 8% to 9% year to date compared with last year.

“And I think that’s going to go higher. Our volume is up 13%,” he added. “The market’s been really good.”

But while single-family home prices continue to post year-over-year gains, the sales pace took a breather in October. The Valley report showed that 962 single-family homes traded hands last month, down nearly 9% from the October 1999 level and down nearly 16%, or 180 homes, from the pace set in September.

Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the CAR, said the dip is due in part to a regular seasonal slowdown. But she added that the region is heading toward an economic “soft landing.” With the stock market losing steam and the nation’s gross domestic product easing, “We’re just not seeing the expansion we were seeing,” she said.

And that could translate into fewer home sales.

For now, though, she and others said, the market is healthy, with CAR figures showing that the annualized median price for a single-family home in the county this year should best last year’s figure by about 2%.

Price hikes for single-family homes continue to drive traffic into the condominium market, the local report showed. Keys were exchanged for 397 condo units in the San Fernando Valley in October, up 6% from October 1999 and up nearly 2% from September.

The median price for a condominium in the San Fernando Valley was $138,000, up 19% from a year ago but down slightly (2.8%) from September. Even with continued price gains in the condo market, that segment remains substantially below its high water mark of $154,000 set in September 1991.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, the 209 single-family homes sold was fairly consistent with sales in both September and last October. The median price was $245,000, a gain of 7.5% over the same month in 1999 but a slight dip from the $247,400 posted in September.

Condo sales were down, but the median price rose 14.2% over last year to $145,000.