L.A. County home sales rise 3.5 percent, bucking statewide downturn in real estate.

L.A. County home sales rise 3.5 percent, bucking statewide downturn in real estate

The once-sizzling California resale housing market continues to cool, posting a 6.7 percent decline in sales in April, although existing home sales in Los Angeles County rose 3.5 percent during the same period, according to the California Association of Realtors.

A number of factors may have contributed to the increase in the number of Los Angeles County home sales, CAR spokeswoman Chris Taylor said.

"The Los Angeles economy is doing fairly well," she said, citing a recent increase in employment in the area.

Also, "the upkick in interest rates may have caused some prospective homebuyers to finally jump into the market," she said.

The statewide slowdown in sales of existing single-family homes followed an 8.8 percent decrease in March. However, in Los Angeles, sales rose 15.6 percent from February to March. And the statewide sales rate for April was 13.2 percent lower than in April 1989, while the local sales rate was down 26.8 percent from last year's figure.

The trade group also reported a sharp 2 percent drop this year in the median price for a single-family home. The decline, from $201,034 to $197,107, was the first such fall in five years. The median price of a single-family home in Los Angeles was $220,076 in April, compared to $215,871 in April 1989.

CAR President Jim Antt, said the figures show a continued shift in activity from areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco to Sacramento and Palm Springs.

"We are experiencing a two-tiered housing market in California," Antt said. "While some homebuyers have been squeezed out of the more expensive coastal areas, the less expensive inland areas continue to attract buyers and experience strong sales."

Monte Helme, spokesman for Century 21 Real Estate Corp., said this trend is especially characteristic of Los Angeles.

"The eastern valleys, it's just phenomenal what's going on out there," he said. "We're seeing the first-time buyer going further and further out."

And Fred Sands, owner of Fred Sands Realtors, contrasted future affordability of the inland areas with that of the coastal regions.

"I think that for affordability you will see a lot more activity in the Inland areas, but high-end prices will be in the coastal areas," he said.

CAR's inventory of unsold homes, which measures the time it would take to deplete the supply of resale homes at the April rate of sales, rose 10.8 months in April, up from 9.8 months in March and 5.6 months in April 1989.

"Sellers are pricing their property more realistically for current market conditions, which has contributed to the statewide yearly price decline," said CAR economist Leslie Appleton-Young. In addition, the share of sales activity in the higher-priced areas of the state has dropped almost 10 percent since last year -- reducing the statewide median price.

The year-to-year comparisons showed big drops in the number of sales in Ventura (38.6 percent), Los Angeles (26.8 percent), San Francisco (20.7 percent) and Orange County (16.1 percent). Year-to-year gains came in Sacramento (31 percent), Palm Springs-lower desert (19.5 percent), San Diego (10.6 percent) and Riverside-San Bernardino (9.3 percent).

Sales of existing condominiums fell 9.9 percent in April and were off 3.3 percent from a year ago. The median price was $145,707, up 3.2 percent from March and 7.1 percent from a year ago.

Only a few regions aside from Los Angeles posted increases in resale activity during April, led by a 6.8 gain in Santa Barbara. Riverside-San Bernardino (5.6 percent), the Northern California wine country (1.1 percent) and Monterey (0.4 percent) also posted gains.

Sales activity in April dropped by a sharp 13 percent in Orange County and by 19.8 percent in the Northern California region, which covers the areas outside the metropolitan areas. Also declining were San Diego (10.5 percent), Ventura (7.1 percent), Palm Springs (5.9 percent), Sacramento (5.5 percent) and the San Francisco Bay Area (3.8 percent).