Sales, Median Price of Homes Increase in July

Buoyed by sales of entry-level residences, Ventura County home sales in July were up well over those of last year.

Despite a slump in sales of expensive homes that once drove the market, lower-income buyers recovering from previous downturns are compensating by buying in less chi-chi neighborhoods, analysts said.

“The up-market homes are selling, but not as much as a year ago,” said John Karevoll, the analyst who prepared the report for La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems. “The smaller stuff is selling because that category was lagging. It’s taken them a while to get up the rung of the ladder.”

Total home sales jumped about 30% over July 2000, to 1,576; the median price was up 8.3% during the same period to $275,000. This year’s July sales are very close to those of July 1999; ’99 was considered a banner year--the best since the late 1980s.

Sales figures for July include new and resale homes as well as condominiums. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less.

The interest rate for an average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was at 6.49% Monday, according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of nearly 3,000 banks in 50 states. That’s down slightly from a month ago.

Analysts said they suspect that some people are putting their homes up for sale now because they sense that the market won’t continue to rise as aggressively. Last year, the market appeared to be flying, with no end in sight. That may not be so this year.

Market Still Tight, Real Estate Agents Say

“There’s not this feeling that they have much to gain by waiting,” said Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. “People are remarkably rational.”

But local real estate agents said that housing is still hard to come by, especially in the moderately priced areas.

“We’re really frighteningly low in inventory right now,” said Kay Wilson-Bolton of Century 21 Buena Vista in Santa Paula, one of only two ZIP Code districts in the county where median prices are still below $200,000. “We probably don’t have 10 houses in the affordable price range.”

Wilson-Bolton said she watched a home she thought was very overpriced sell over the weekend, adding that many of her homes are sold before they are even listed.

A couple who sold a $434,000 home in Santa Paula have been unable to find anything they like and can afford in Ventura, Wilson-Bolton said.

“The prices in the next level have just gotten so high,” she said. People “know they can’t buy in Ventura.”

Santa Paula and Fillmore continue to be alternatives for families priced out of Camarillo and Ventura. Sales were up 61.5% in Santa Paula and 11% in Fillmore, where median prices reached $217,500.

Sales jumped highest in little Oak View, where home sales rose from four to 10. Also seeing a big jump was affluent Oak Park in the east county, which saw sales jump by 57% and median prices rise slightly to $391,500, the highest in the county. East Ventura sales jumped 60%, and median prices rose 21.6% to $310,000.

The housing market appears to be largely untouched by the slowing economy, except in the higher-end areas. And despite the economy, some companies are continuing to expand, which means more employees who will require housing.

“There’s resistance in some of the mansion markets,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “People sort of hit the wall, because it doesn’t make sense to pay so much for that property. There’s a reassessment of other areas that at another time might not have been the most attractive. They are communities with character.”

Latinos Have Effect on Market

He said Latino families in particular are upwardly mobile and just beginning to buy into the housing market after histories of renting. They have helped change the dynamic of home-buying, boosting sales of moderately priced homes in less affluent areas.

And others are reevaluating which homes they can afford.

“You’re going to see a lot of communities that have been jumped over,” Kyser said. “Now, they’re coming back and saying we need to look at this one more seriously.”