Orange County Home Prices Hit New High

The median price of a previously owned home in Orange County hit $500,000 for the first time last month as property values continued their meteoric rise.

Orange County is the first Southern California county to hit the half-million-dollar mark for resales, said analyst John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems, the real estate data provider that released housing statistics Tuesday. The latest resale record reflected a 26.6% price jump from $395,000 in January 2003.

The overall median home price in the county -- for previously owned homes, new homes and condos -- was $450,000, up from $369,000 a year earlier but down from the all-time high of $467,000 in December.

The 22% jump came as a surprise to Karevoll. “We’ve been expecting the rate of increase in Orange County medians to ease back a bit,” he said. “Clearly, that isn’t happening. There is no indication of any change in the market.”

Karevoll predicted that year-to-year price jumps would fall back to 15% to 17% per month by summer. For now, though, prices keep going up because “Orange County has more people who want to buy homes than there are for sale,” he said.

That means real estate agents like Alison McCormick of Strada Properties in Newport Beach are scrambling to find properties for their buyers.

“There is not a lot on the market,” McCormick said, “and what’s there is going up and up in price.”

The median price of an Orange County condo climbed 27.5% to $325,000 in January. New-home prices, which typically are higher than the prices of homes being resold, slipped less than 1% to $507,000. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold cost less and half more.

The overall number of homes sold fell 12.5% to 3,052, which McCormick attributed to lack of inventory. Buyers are having difficulty finding homes they want, she said.

“We are seeing a lot of panic in this market,” McCormick said. “People are buying things that they wouldn’t normally.”