Local Housing Market May Have Bottomed Out : Real estate: Report says demand in Ventura County during the first 10 months of 1993 is 3.4% higher than a year ago.

The residential real estate market appears to have bottomed out in Ventura County, according to a report issued Friday by TRW-REDI Property Data.

TRW-REDI monitors real estate transactions from public documents in more than 300 counties nationwide and provides information to lenders, appraisers and title companies.

“It looks as if we have probably hit the bottom and things will start to improve at a very gradual pace,” said Nima Nattagh, an analyst with TRW-REDI.

“They think they’ll be looking at more activity, but it will be concentrated at the lower end of the market,” Nattagh said.

Housing demand in Ventura County in January through October is 3.4% higher than during the same period last year. That contrasts with a decline of 6.8% between the same periods in 1991 and 1992.

Also, the average sales price of housing in the county dropped just 1.3% in the first 10 months of 1993 contrasted with the same period in 1992--the smallest drop in the Southern California region.

Some county real estate agents, however, say they fail to see tangible reflections of those statistics in their local real estate markets.

Mark Ramus, a broker and the owner of Century 21 Tri-Star in Oxnard, said that from his perspective, the market is sputtering along at best.

“We’re seeing activity in the marketplace--it’s not dead,” he said. “But I don’t see any dramatic changes, either.”

Some of the problems in the local market that Ramus described were more structural than cyclical, rooted in the troubles of the larger regional economy.

He said many homeowners are leaving the county because their jobs have moved elsewhere, contributing to the plethora of houses for sale in Oxnard.

Although the area is seeing an influx of home buyers fleeing the urban troubles of Los Angeles, many people who would like to move to Ventura County find themselves stuck when no one will buy their home in the more depressed Los Angeles market, he said.

Ramus added that prices, particularly in the $200,000-and-above range, continue to plummet. “We’re seeing houses sell in the $230,000 to $250,000 range that would’ve gone for $300,000 less than a year ago,” he said.

Another reason for dropping prices, he said, is the number of foreclosures still flooding the market. The bank-owned homes, often listed at rock-bottom prices to allow the reluctant owners to get rid of them quickly, “serve as a comparable drag on a neighborhood,” he said.

Emily Irelan, past president of the Conejo Board of Realtors and a real estate agent with Remax-Realtors in Thousand Oaks, said she was surprised to hear of the comparatively rosy statistics, since the local real estate market did not seem to her to be noticeably improving.

She added, however, that while the news may not cheer up many sellers, it is positive for buyers.

“This is a wonderful market for 50% of the people in the market--the buyers,” she said. “It’s great if you’re a first-time buyer. It’s great if you are a seller and you want to move up.”

Whatever the perspective, the Ventura County market is healthier than its counterparts around Southern California.

Contrasting the first 10 months of 1993 to the first 10 months of 1992, Los Angeles County had 4.3% less of its homes sell, and San Bernardino County, the most depressed housing market, had 8.7% less of its homes sell.

Housing prices in Los Angeles from January to October of this year were 4% less than at the same time last year; in Orange County, housing prices were 2.7% less.