Each January in this space it's our custom to look back at how the Southland housing market fared in the last year.
But today you get four perspectives instead of just one. We'll review 1999--the hottest year in a decade--and recap the roller-coaster '90s.
Then we've asked a number of realty experts to offer their forecasts for the market as we enter the 2000s.
Finally, to see how your own home value fared in the 1990s, check out the chart accompanying this story.
Using the median price per square foot, the chart shows when each Southland ZIP Code peaked last, when it bottomed and where it is now.
First, a look at 1999:
A total of 299,586 homes and condos sold last year in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties, up 5.3% from 284,637 in 1998.
That number was the highest sales count since 1989, when 315,721 homes were sold, according to Acxiom/DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla.
The Inland Empire saw the largest increase in home sales, with 37,003 homes sold in Riverside County, up 9.1% from 1998, and 33,298 transactions taking place in San Bernardino County, up 9.3% from 1998.
Ventura also posted strong gains in home sales last year, with 15,666 sold, up 7% from a year earlier. San Diego saw similar gains, with 52,457 homes sold last year, up 7.4% from 1998.
About 111,000 homes sold in Los Angeles County in 1999, up 4% from 1998. Orange County had the weakest sales gain, with 50,154 homes sold in 1999, up just 0.3% from 1998.
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The median price paid for a Southland home in 1999 was $191,000, up 3.8% from $184,000 in 1998. But the 3.8% gain understates the actual increase in home values, according to John Karevoll, an analyst with Acxiom/DataQuick.
"A lot of the buying activity in 1999 was in the Inland Empire and other lower-cost, entry-level areas," he said, "which has pulled down the median price.
"Adjusting for this shift in 'market mix,' home values in Southern California are going up by about 9% a year."
Prices rose the most in Ventura, Orange and Riverside counties, while Los Angeles County posted moderate gains, Karevoll said.
Median home prices jumped 8.7% in Ventura County, to $238,000 in 1999 from $219,000 in 1998. Orange and Riverside counties posted similar increases, with a 5.7% jump last year to $240,000 in Orange County, up from $227,000 in 1998, and a 5.7% gain in Riverside County to $148,000 last year from $140,000 in 1998.
San Diego County saw a 5.6% increase in median home prices to $207,000 last year from $196,000 in '98.
Gains in median home prices were more moderate in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, with a 3.1% jump in San Bernardino County to $132,000 last year, from $128,000 in 1998. Los Angeles charted a 2.2% gain to $188,000 in 1999 from $184,000 in 1998.
Some other realty tidbits from 1999:
* The aggregate value of Southern California's housing stock also hit an all-time high in December. The region's 3.83 million homes and condos were worth $931 billion last month, up 9.2% from $852.9 billion for the same period in 1998.
* During the last year, 522 of the 560 Southland ZIP Codes with 10 or more sales saw increases in home values, as measured in square-foot prices. Most year-over-year increases were in the 6% to 7% range. The communities that experienced declines were mostly in desert and mountain second-home areas where price fluctuations are stronger.
* The typical monthly mortgage payment, figuring 20% down on a median-priced home with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, was $1,020 in Southern California, up 9% from $936 in 1998, but below the 1989 peak of $1,270.
* Buoyed by a strong economy, the number of homeowners unable to keep up with their mortgage payments last year dropped steeply in most Southern California counties. Notices of default--the first step in the foreclosure process--posted the largest fall in Orange and Ventura counties. In Orange County, they fell 28.3%, to 4,830 in 1999 from 6,736 in 1998. The smallest recorded drop was in San Bernardino County, where notices fell 15%, to 11,185 last year from 13,136 in 1998.
* There was also a significant drop in foreclosures in most Southland counties. Orange County posted the steepest fall, recording half the foreclosures that it had the previous year. San Bernardino charted the smallest drop, with a 26% decrease in foreclosures from 1998.
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Now, for the rollicking decade of the 1990s:
The realty roller coaster ride last peaked in the late '80s with the Southland housing market in a frenzy of multiple offers and over-bid sales.
Then the Cold War ended in 1989, spurring massive layoffs at most of the region's major defense firms and eventually shuttering most of its defense industry.
The crumbling economy hit real estate hard, and by the mid-'90s, the region's housing market was mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression.
