County Home Sales Start the Year Strong
If the first month of 2002 is an indication, this will be a very good year for Ventura County home sellers, but not for first-time buyers, who increasingly are left behind in a housing price boom that shows no sign of slowing.
County home sales and prices increased more last month than in any January since 1989, compared with the same month a year before. Sales were up 29%, and prices were $26,000 higher, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
“The year certainly started with a bang,” said analyst John Karevoll of DataQuick, which tracks completed sales statewide. “In Ventura County, the housing market is strong, but not alarmingly so. We’ve not crossed the threshold where things get frenzied like they did in the Bay Area.”
Ventura County owners sold 1,115 houses and condominiums last month, up from 867 for January 2001 and nearly three times more than in the same month a decade ago, when the county was entering an eight-year slowdown.
The county’s median home price--the point at which half the homes sell for more and half for less--reached $284,000 in January compared with $258,000 a year before.
Both the sales and price numbers are down sharply from December, which is traditionally a much stronger month than January, Karevoll said.
Prices historically drop in January, he said, because more high-priced, newly built homes are sold in November and December as developers try to clear inventories. It usually takes until March or April for the prices to catch back up to the December figure.
The same thing is true for all of Southern California, where the median price declined $11,000 from December to January, Karevoll said. That included a $24,000 drop in Orange County and a $13,000 decline in San Diego County. In Los Angeles County, where much less of the market consists of new homes, prices edged upward.
Economist Mark Schniepp said the bullish year-to-year numbers bolster projections that the county and region are in for solid growth this year.
“We knew home sales would continue to be strong, but we had no idea they would start the year like this,” said Schniepp, director of California Economic Forecast in Santa Barbara.
The Ventura County market remains strong, he said, because of a severe housing shortage, low interest rates, a stable labor market and a balanced local economy that has generally resisted the economic downturn.
“I think everybody realizes that we’re pretty much at the bottom on interest rates,” Schniepp said. “The savvy buyer knows that with a recovery looming, interest rates will go up. And people are putting money into housing instead of the stock market.”
The continued strength of the housing market buoys the greater economy, he said, because home purchases fuel a host of industries. “Housing is very good for the economy,” Schniepp said. “People pay movers, and then they remodel. There’s a huge trickle down.
“But this is a double-edged sword,” he added. “It gets sellers equity for their next purchase, but housing is already so unaffordable that for it to continue to rise just exacerbates a serious problem in Ventura County.”
There may well come a point, he said, when businesses will stop moving here because their workers cannot afford homes.
Recent employment figures indicate that may already be happening.
Jobs in Ventura County dropped in December and January, the first declines since 1996.
DataQuick’s sales totals for January reflect purchases completed from agreements reached in the previous 30 to 60 days.
Thousand Oaks owners sold the most homes last month, 229, while Oxnard owners sold 220; 201 were sold in Simi Valley, 144 in Ventura and 98 in Camarillo.
The 25 houses sold in Westlake and Lake Sherwood in the Thousand Oaks area increased most in price--about $100,000, or 25%, in a year.
