County Home Sales Defying National Mood

Ventura County continued to buck national economic trends last month as pent-up demand and low interest rates kept home sales high and prompted analysts to predict that the affluent coastal county will weather the recession without a housing slump.

Local sales reached the highest level for an October since 1988, and the price of a typical home was $29,000 higher than a year ago, the largest 12-month gain in more than a decade, DataQuick Information Systems reported Thursday.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 temporarily slowed Ventura County home sales, as shocked buyers put activity on the back burner for a couple of weeks. But the market returned with a vengeance in October.

And analysts now predict that 2001 will be the biggest year for sales and price increases since the 1980s boom.

“So far we haven’t been able to find much of an effect because of Sept. 11,” said John Karevoll of DataQuick. “We’re still looking at the strongest market in Southern California home sales in over a decade.”

Ventura County home sales had declined in September compared with the previous year. But in October, sales were up 16.4% from the same month in 2000, and prices were 11.2% higher than last year, with a typical home selling for $287,000.

October sales of 1,392 homes were slightly higher than in September despite the usual softening that occurs each fall, Karevoll said.

For the first 10 months of this year, 13,812 houses and condos sold, compared with 12,568 for the same period in 2000, which was also a good year. And owners are on a pace to sell more than 16,000 homes in 2001--easily the highest since 1988, Karevoll said.

By comparison, sales in San Diego County were down last month, but were still high in most of the rest of Southern California. Preliminary figures in Los Angeles County show a year-to-year sales increase of about 5% and a price hike of 12%.

With interest rates hovering near a 30-year low and Ventura County’s housing inventory low partly because of growth restrictions, economist Mark Schniepp said the home sales market should hold up.

“That’s a supply-constrained area where everybody wants to be,” Schniepp said. “So there is simply not going to be an adequate supply, especially with ever-lower interest rates. We may see some stabilization, but I don’t see anything receding.”

But there are signs that the local real estate market may be cooling off.

Meyers Group, a firm that tracks home sales from the signing of a sales agreement, reported last week that new home sales in Ventura County were down 30% during the third quarter of this year. New houses count for about 20% of the county’s total sales and are generally priced higher than existing houses. So the decline suggests a weakness in the high end of the market.

Meyers Group’s numbers are more current than DataQuick’s, since DataQuick does not count a sale until escrow closes, usually 30 to 60 days after a deal is struck.

Of the 30% drop-off, about one-third was attributed to the Sept. 11 attacks, said Meyers Group Vice President John Burns. But the rest can be blamed on the economic downturn.

“There is some indication that there are fewer high-end buyers in the [Ventura County] market,” Burns said. “The lower-priced homes seem to be selling very well, because they’re very sensitive to mortgage rates. The higher-priced homes are more sensitive to the state’s economy, because they require the buyer to sell a previous home and that takes longer.”

Burns considers homes priced over $500,000 to be those most affected by the new home downturn.

Another possible constraint, if this week’s trend continues, could be interest rates, which reached a 30-year low in Southern California on Nov. 1 but have increased nearly one-half of one percent since then.

Rates for a 30-year fixed mortgage for less than $275,000 rose from 5.87% with a two percentage point payment to 6.41%, while rates of a zero-point loan increased from 6.37% to 6.91%, said Earl Peattie, president of Mortgage News Co., which surveys mortgage rates in California.

“I think that’s the biggest jump we’ve ever had in one week,” Peattie said. “It’s a nasty market. One lender faxed me four changes in one day.”

The volatility was prompted by good news from a variety of sources this week, including progress in the Afghan war and a 7.1% national increase in retail sales. That prompted a stock market rally and a drop in the bond market, trends that push up mortgage rates.

Ventura County’s strong overall October performance was led by a robust market in the agricultural Santa Clara Valley. Fillmore’s sales more than doubled and prices increased 35% in a year, while Santa Paula sales jumped 53% and prices 23%.

That is partly because a prolonged housing shortage along the coast has pushed demand inland, real estate agents said.

“The market is strong,” said Jim Barroca, spokesman for the Ventura County Coast Assn. of Realtors. “And for the last year or so, I’ve been hearing the Realtors complain there just aren’t enough homes for sale.”

The inventory of available dwellings has dropped from 1,112 houses and 280 condos three years ago to 840 houses and 165 condos today, he said. That is for all western Ventura County cities except Ojai, which has its own association.

Conversely, in the county’s highest-priced market, Thousand Oaks, the market had a slower month in October, with both sales declining from the year before.

But the market has already rebounded, said Jim Keith, past president of the Conejo Valley Assn. of Realtors.

“The closings for October reflect the sales activity from mid-September,” he said. “But sales are right back up to the level before Sept. 11. So I don’t see a problem in the Conejo Valley.”

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Ventura County House Sales

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October 2000 October 2001 Number Median Number Median City / ZIP Code of sales price of sales price CAMARILLO 93010 65 $285,000 68 $283,000 93012 65 $275,500 86 $294,000 FILLMORE 93015 16 $178,250 39 $240,000 MOORPARK 93021 51 $282,000 50 $319,500 OAK PARK 91377 30 $355,500 34 $435,000 OAK VIEW 93022 10 $251,000 5 $265,000 OJAI 93023 28 $359,000 28 $310,000 OXNARD 93030 91 $226,500 98 $261,250 93033 60 $179,750 94 $185,000 93035 48 $255,000 64 $297,750 PORT HUENEME 93041 50 $144,500 58 $154,000 SANTA PAULA 93060 19 $179,500 29 $220,000 SIMI VALLEY 93063 119 $264,000 115 $264,523 93065 129 $243,000 137 $273,000 THOUSAND OAKS 91320 76 $351,000 113 $408,000 91360 77 $305,000 54 $300,000 91361 23 $410,000 17 $465,000 91362 83 $426,500 70 $390,000 VENTURA 93001 30 $222,000 37 $210,000 93003 76 $227,500 101 $294,500 93004 36 $241,000 39 $285,000 COUNTYWIDE 1,196 $258,000 1,392 $287,000

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Source: DataQuick Information Systems

Ventura County Home Sales

October 1988-2001

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Total sales Median price 1988 1,540 $205,000 1989 1,260 $226,000 1990 785 $213,000 1991 737 $215,000 1992 732 $205,000 1993 809 $208,000 1994 810 $186,000 1995 828 $190,000 1996 891 $190,000 1997 1,115 $200,000 1998 1,312 $216,000 1999 1,263 $241,000 2000 1,196 $258,000 2001 1,392 $287,000

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Source: DataQuick Information Systems