Housing Sales Orange County

The housing market stayed in high gear throughout Southern California in January and shifted into overdrive in Orange County, where prices rose at a double-digit pace not seen since the late 1980s, a real estate data service said Wednesday. Orange County had its third straight month of double-digit price increases, with a median home price of $212,000, a gain of 14.6% from a year earlier, according to Acxiom/DataQuick Information Services, which monitors all housing sales.

Mansion mania: Sales of $1 million-and-up homes in Orange County last year rose nearly 40% from 1996, reports Richard C. Poucher, who monitors home sales for county Realtors' groups. Poucher's statistics showed 323 such sales handled by real estate agents in 1997, up from 232 a year earlier. The top end of the market has led the recent resurgence in California, with statewide sales of million-dollar homes up 42%, according to Acxiom/DataQuick Information Systems, which tracks sales.

Southern California home sales surged in December--usually a so-so month--capping a solid year of recovery for the housing industry. The median home price last month rose 6.7% from a year earlier in Los Angeles County and a whopping 10.3% in Orange County. More homes sold in Los Angeles County in 1997 than in any year since 1990, Acxiom/DataQuick Information Services analyst John Karevoll said Monday.

The median price of a new, detached home in Orange County decreased 4% in the third quarter to $355,990, not because of falling values but because a spike in sales of large homes ended, a survey shows. For detached homes, the median size fell to 2,478 square feet from 2,698 in the previous quarter, according to the Meyers Group Consulting Services LLC, which publishes a quarterly survey.

Orange County's median price for a new home smashed the $300,000 mark for the first time, soaring nearly 32% over new-home prices a year ago, housing analysts said Monday. Experts said heavy demand has caused a shortage in new homes in Orange County, where the market is so strong that it has tended to overshadow a powerful housing recovery regionwide in Southern California since last summer.

After an October dip linked to Wall Street's woes and an interest rate spike, Orange County's housing market rebounded sharply in November as sales for the month hit their highest level in nine years. Prices followed suit, climbing 9% from a year ago to a median $229,000, Acxiom/DataQuick Information Services reported. "Prices are still going up, and I don't think that there's much that's going to stop it," said Acxiom statistician John Karevoll.

Is real estate recovering yet? CT Realty Corp., a real estate investment company based in Newport Beach had $60 million in deals last year, double the number it expected, including the purchase of Centerstone Plaza in Irvine for $23 million. Lincoln Residential Services, an Irvine manager of multifamily units, has added more than 9,000 new units during 1995, boosting its portfolio to 40,000 units.

Furthering a yearlong housing recovery, home sales in Orange County rose 5.6% in November with sales of existing homes leading the pack, a real estate reporting service said Monday. Meanwhile, sales of new homes dropped off 14% from the same time last year, a brief downward slip in a segment that has year-to-date outstripped 1995 by 10%. The median selling price for the 2,819 homes sold last month dipped 2.

Bad weather and higher interest rates kept potential home buyers out of the market in January. Sales of new and existing homes dropped 26% compared to the same month last year. Among those homes that did sell, average prices edged up just under 2%. JANUARY 1994 JANUARY 1995 ZIP Sales Avg. price Sales Avg.