Orange County Home Sales, Prices Sluggish in March
The spring home-selling season is off to a slow start in Orange County, with local home sales down 25.5 percent and home prices up just slightly from a year ago, according to the Orange County Register.
DataQuick reported that 3,130 homes sold in Orange County last month, marking the 18th consecutive month in which home sales haven’t met the prior year’s pace.
With the California mortgage market in turmoil, last month was the slowest March since 1995, and sales had fallen 44 percent from the March record of 5,577 homes sold that was set two years ago.
Experts and Realtors agree that sales will continue to lag throughout the California housing market for the rest of 2007, with prices staying flat and possibly ending up lower by year’s end.
“This spring is not as busy for most real estate agents,” said Les Fujimoto, an agent with Prudential California Realty in Yorba Linda.
“Our office as a whole sold over 30 homes last month. It was better than March 2006. But take (into account) January and what April’s starting to look like and eeeee, it’s scary. I don’t think (the market has) turned around yet.”
While home sale closings typically pick up in March and accelerate through August, figures out Thursday show that prospects for a recovery from the 2006 slowdown are slim.
On the other hand, the Orange County median home price - or the mid-point of all sales - increased slightly. Last month’s median price was $629,000, up $4,000 from the same month a year ago, an increase of 0.6 percent.
Existing condo prices ended below year-ago levels for a seventh consecutive month. Real estate professionals said business has slowed partly because of fallout from the meltdown in the subprime (bad credit mortgage) lending industry.
Buyers are afraid to buy, and in some cases, are unable to get California home loan financing that was available as little as a month or two ago.
Experts say, however, that Orange County’s exposure to such types of home loans, designed for buyers with shaky credit, is relatively low compared to areas like the Inland Empire and the Central Valley of California.
Agents said that Orange County mortgage problems won’t compare to those seen in other parts of Southern California, and that on a positive note, buyers nowadays have much more time and choices.
Continue reading in the Orange County Register …