Bell, Inglewood and South Los Angeles are hot. Manhattan Beach, Tarzana and Beverly Hills' 90210 are not.
Thanks to gains in some of Los Angeles County's most-affordable neighborhoods, the county's overall median price in November edged up 2.6% over the year-ago month, to $510,000, La Jolla-based research firm DataQuick Information Systems said Tuesday.
Median prices in Inglewood, Whittier, Bell, Pasadena and large swaths of South L.A. rose at least 17% in the three-month period ended in November, DataQuick said.
These smoldering neighborhoods, considered more affordable, were the last to heat up during the recent housing boom. Although they are expected to eventually cool off, for now they are helping to offset price declines in once-hot markets that have become less affordable.
Those now-slumping ZIP Codes include Beverly Hills' 90210, Manhattan Beach's 90266, Tarzana's 91356 and Alhambra's 91803 -- where the median price fell at least 10% from September to November, DataQuick reported.
"It's clear that many of the more-expensive neighborhoods have seen their run, while there's still some gas in the tank for less-expensive neighborhoods," said John Karevoll, chief analyst for DataQuick.
Other California counties, most notably San Diego and Sacramento, began seeing overall median prices decline earlier this year.
Karevoll and other housing observers expect L.A. County's median to flatten and possibly depreciate within the next couple of months. That's because sales continue to decline versus year-ago levels. Slower sales have put downward pressure on prices in Southern California and the nation.
In November, Los Angeles County sales decreased 19% from the year-ago month, the smallest such decline in five months, DataQuick said. November is usually one of the slowest months for sales. Yet, with only 7,351 transactions logged last month, it was the worst November since 1997.
Still, the latest statistics indicated that the housing market in the nation's most-populous county -- it accounts for a third of Southern California's home sales -- continues to settle down from its recent peak but is not yet exhibiting signs of a crash.
"We're just not seeing the turbulence in the numbers that we would if we were in the midst of a real downturn," Karevoll said. "It's not like the surge period, but L.A. is doing pretty well as far as prices go."
