Median Home Price in Southland Jumps 23.3%
Fueled in part by a flurry of home sales in Ventura County, the median home price in six Southern California counties swelled 23.3% last month -- the swiftest increase in more than 15 years.
The median price of a home in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties was $371,000 during March, compared with $301,000 one year earlier, data released Friday showed.
The increase was the steepest since collection of such data began. The price rose almost as quickly in May 1989, when the median price was $176,000, representing a 22.2% year-over-year increase, according to DataQuick Information Systems, which has monitored the real estate industry since 1988.
In Ventura County, the median price -- the point at which half the homes sell for less and half for more -- rose to $461,000 last month. In March 2003, the median there was $359,000. The increase was second only to Los Angeles County, where, as reported this week, the median price jumped 29% to a record $375,000.
“We have a lot of people coming from the Santa Barbara area,” where lofty real estate prices are forcing buyers to look elsewhere, said Fernando Campos, a realtor with Coldwell Banker in Ventura. “That’s one driving force. The second is interest rates are quite low, and that’s allowing a lot of buyers to purchase a home.”
Lack of supply also is driving up the cost of homes, he said: There were 47 available homes in the city of Ventura earlier this week, but the average market has 200 to 300 homes available.
As a result, homes are selling within four or five days, and it’s not at all uncommon to have eight offers made on each available home, often at $5,000 to $10,000 over listed prices, Campos said.
Riverside and San Bernardino counties also posted a record number of overall home sales last month, totaling 5,939 and 4,173, respectively.
Those figures contributed heavily to the 17.1% increase in the overall number of homes sold during March in the six Southern California counties, to 32,717.
That rapid pace is expected to continue, said John Karevoll, a DataQuick analyst, who said it reflected the ripple effect of a trend that started when the housing market rebounded first in San Diego in late 1995.
Los Angeles and Ventura soon followed, in mid-1996.
“What’ll happen now is the Inland Empire will see a bit more of a surge than the rest of the region,” Karevoll said.
San Diego home prices had the slowest increase, climbing 16.8% to $424,000.
The rest of the region will probably mirror that rate by late summer or fall, predicted Karevoll.
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Sales, prices up
The median home price rose the most in Los Angeles County in March, compared with other Southern California counties.
*--* % change March % change Homes from median from sold in year price year County March ago (thousands) ago Los Angeles 10,875 +12.0% $375 +29.3% Ventura 1,516 +6.3 461 +28.4 Riverside 5,939 +32.7 300 +26.6 Orange 4,902 +12.5 485 +23.1 San Bernardino 4,173 +20.2 221 +20.8 San Diego 5,312 +19.7 424 +16.8 Southern California 32,717 +17.3 371 +23.3
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Source: DataQuick Information Systems
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Times staff writer Roger Vincent contributed to this report.
