Sales of new and luxury homes in March 2014 helped boost the Orange
County median home price to $580,000, the highest point in seven years,
according to DataQuick Information Systems.
The overall number of home sales continued to slide, however, down
5.8 percent, though sales of new homes nearly doubled from a year ago as
more projects made a debut.
The median price in Los Angeles hit $435,000, a 14.5 percent increase over last March. Sales were down 15 percent.
The snapshot of Orange County and Los Angeles was similar to that for
Southern California as a whole. The median price for the six-county
region was $400,000 last month, a 15.8 percent jump over last year.
Homebuying in Southern California had a very slow start this year,
with March sales the second-lowest for that month in nearly 20 years.
Among various reasons, including a limited housing supply, and said
some buyers have been priced out of the market or are facing credit
hurdles.
“I think you’re going to see a pickup in the market,” said , a real
estate agent , who characterized April 15 as hump day for some home
seekers. “Once they swallow that pill, and pay whatever they need to,
you’re going to see a lot of buyers come back out.”
Another report shows rents, also rising, are taking bigger chunks out of paychecks than in previous years.
The greater Los Angeles area, including Orange County, tops a list of
90 places around the U.S. where the median rent is more than 30 percent
of the median gross income, according to an analysis that real estate
website Zillow did for the New York Times. The report showed Los
Angeles/Orange County rents as a percentage of income rose to 47 percent
in 2013, from 34.1 percent in 2000.
Data also released this week show that Orange County’s housing supply
is on the upswing, with 6,115 active listings, a 29 percent increase
since January.
The supply remains low, however, especially compared to historical
levels. That has buyers’ agents approaching more homeowners whose
properties are not even on the market.
Traditionally relegated for celebrities and high-profile people,
pocket listings (those not on the Multiple Listing Service) have become
more prevalent with inventory being so tigh.
In both Orange and Los Angeles counties, luxury housing markets, including pricey homes built on speculation, have been hot.
It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as there are
numerous new homes from developers slated to hit market in the summer
and fall, The market most likely has some room to grow, but we are
likely in the seventh inning of the recovery.
More buyers this year are looking for homes rather than investments,
agents said, so the criteria is different from the frenzied bidding wars
of last spring, when anything with four walls was a quick sell, often
above the asking price.
Irvine Realtor Blog
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