Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Riverside County home sales continue to climb
Here is a story about the local real estate market ...Riverside the only SoCal county to see increase from last year; sellers find themselves in a crowded marketWednesday, April 19, 2006By LESLIE BERKMANThe Press-Enterprise
Sales of homes in March increased again in Riverside County compared with a year ago, even as the number of sales in Southern California decreased for the fourth consecutive month, a real estate information service reported Tuesday.The Inland Empire housing market's ability to buck the Southern California trend was attributed to its greater affordability, as the Southland's median home price for the first time passed $500,000, according to a study by DataQuick Information Services.Last month, Riverside County posted 6,267 home sales, 6 percent more than in March 2005, while the county's median home price in the same period rose 9 percent to a record $413,000.Among the six counties in Southern California, Riverside alone saw a year-to-year increase in sales. The most severely impacted was Orange County, where the number of sales fell by more than 22 percent.New-home sales in Riverside County were particularly brisk in March, hitting 2,742, the second biggest on record for the area's builders, said John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick, which compiles and publishes monthly housing data.San Bernardino County in March saw year-to-year sales drop 3.4 percent, while its median home price of $367,000 fell short of February's record $373,000 but was 23.2 percent higher than in March 2005.San Bernardino County's year-to-year appreciation rate was the largest gain in the region. The average appreciation for Southern California was 14.1 percent.Karevoll said March, traditionally a bellwether month for housing forecasts, turned out "a bit stronger than we anticipated. We would have thought a year ago that by now appreciation for the region would have been in the single digits."Still, Karevoll said it is clear that the Southern California housing market is cooling off, led by the coastal counties."Overall things are slowing down, but they are slowing from what was basically a very strong, if not frenzied, market," Karevoll said.For the first time in three years, Karevoll said, the supply of housing and buyer demand has come into balance, ousting sellers from the driver's seat.The Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service, which tracks resales in the San Gabriel Valley and the Inland region, said in the first quarter the number of houses on the market soared 185 percent to nearly 21,000.The combination of a high number of new listings and declining sales, the service said, created a 6.9-month supply of homes with "for sale" signs at the end of March, up from 2.4 months a year earlier.Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, said the number of homes available for sale a year ago was extraordinarily low a year ago and is now closer to the historic average.Appleton-Young said although the pace of home appreciation has slowed, she didn't foresee a decline in the median home price as long as the economy stays strong. She said as long as people are employed they are not forced to sell their homes.Charles Chacon, an agent with Re/Max Allstars in Corona, said the market is softening because there aren't enough motivated buyers to absorb the wave of new listings."As interest rates edge up a little people get nervous," Chacon said. "Buyers get cautious because they think it will get cheaper a year from now, and sellers panic because they think we are at the top, and we very well could be."Beth Collins, one of Chacon's clients, said she and her husband, Dale, put their 5-bedroom house in Corona on the market in late January but still haven't found a buyer although they lowered their price by $10,000 to $639,900. Collins, 50, said the couple wants to move to a small town in Iowa to be close to her parents. But she said they are in no rush."As you drive around town there are a lot of houses for sale," Collins said. "I feel lucky that we don't have a deadline."Art Del Rio, 51, said he and his wife, Cyndi, are eager to sell their Corona townhouse and tried to price it below the competition because they have a contingency offer to buy a single-family detached house in Canyon Crest. He said he had expected that at $399,900, their three-bedroom townhouse would sell in two weeks."We are pushing a month now, and although we have had a lot of people come through with agents, they just aren't buying," Del Rio said."As late as October the homes in this development were selling literally within days of being available for sale. We had an agent twice knock on our door wanting to know if we wanted to sell. But then we weren't thinking about it." Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula
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