Hottest, coldest SoCal ZIPs in March

A quickie: Latimes.com has charts of the 10 "hottest" and "coldest" Southern California ZIP Codes, as measured by year-over-year changes in median home sales prices in March.

The three biggest gainers:
Area                                  Mar. '08 median          % change
Newport Beach 92663       $2.75 million            Up 66.8%
Indian Wells 92210             $1.35 million            Up 39.4%
Newport Coast 92657        $2.61 million             Up 27.4%

The three biggest losers:
Area                                   Mar. '08 median         % change
Hemet  92543                       $130,000                    Down 48.0%
Twentynine Palms 92277     $85,000                    Down 43.3%
Moreno Valley 92553           $201,500                    Down 43.2%

Source: DataQuick Information Systems

Your thoughts? Comments?

Comments

[150 Multiple Choice Questions]

Pete, I love you. Really. But what a meaningless post. At a minimum include # of houses sold from this month and median from the last two years. Let's see a trend.

It's this kind of mock-info sterilized and delivered in a vacuum that lia, er realtors have been using to deceive potential buyers for too long.

[peter m]

What the data dosen't tell u is that in the high end zips there might be just a few, maybe 2-5 super mega homes sold in those zips. There is always a tiny % of mega millionaires able to buy mega mansions even in the worst CA economic/RE down climate. Normally these would be less than 5 % of all homes sold in a given month in Scal. It means statistically nothing.

As far as the lower end , all of them except Oxnard & Paramount are really way out in the boonies of IE or hi-desert 3-4 hrs commute from LA. 29 palms is so far away and such a small isolated desert town it mean nothing statistically. Ditto for barstow. Sun City is a little-known SW Riverside new-growth area next to hemet which is quite desolate, hot, pancake flat, and bland, as is adjacent perris, romoland, Hemet , menifee, ect. Way too much overbuilding of cheap stucco tracts and tons of foreclosures. No home out there is worth $100,000.

[peter m]

It is very easy to take a few sales in LA hi-end zips even if such zip show 2-5 sales, and show a 50% YOY increase , and lead ordinary folks by the nose to believe that hey LA is going up in RE. Santa monica may show 2 sales in one zip for 3 million each and that zip is up 40% YOy. Bev hills show 5 homes sold in 90210 for 3.5 miilion each and up 45% . Presto , LA RE is up!!.

That is pure balony. U can track datquick hi-end sales each month and same zips can go up 50% in one month and same zip is down 50% next month., IT means NOTHING. Pacfic Palisades might be up 30% one month and down 25% next month. Problem is a sampling of only 2-10 sales per zip is meanlingless.

anyway even if u have 200-250 monthly sales of expensive homes in LA coastal areas and they stay constant in price YOY, they are only 5% and way less than 10 percent of total sales in LA County. If u have the other 90-95 % of LA homes & zips crashing neg 20-30% YOY then the bigger picture is that LA County is in a world of hurt.

[joe franks]

The statistics you posted don't simply lie; they are meaningless. Because they are meaningless but presented prominently in a headline, they demonstrate contempt toward your readers.

Joe

[doesn't make sense]

Again, as stated previously and not addressed by you -- the dataquick info for my zipcode is wrong. I've watched 3 escrows close in my building and new folks moving in. That was March and the other list, (the one with all zips) said one condo was sold in the entire area. Simply not true.

Can you dig in and find out what these March numbers represent?

If, as suggested, it takes 3 months or longer for a title to be recorded and reported to dataquick....perhaps the 3 month aggregate numbers might be more reliable for those who are watching the market.

[puckhead]

"The statistics you posted don't simply lie; they are meaningless. Because they are meaningless but presented prominently in a headline, they demonstrate contempt toward your readers"

Peter,

Next time just post the zip codes with loses. You'll get 100 replies with people slapping each others backs saying "I told you so" and predicting that houses will cost about the same as a tank of gas by 2010. Come on Peter, you're in the entertainment biz. Give the people what they want!!!

[peter m]

Newport Coast 92657 $2,048,750 $2,610,000 27.4%

Newport coast is a tiny exclusive enclave grouping of mult-million dollar mega mansions located up the hill from Pacific coast hwy just to the east of newport beach proper. It is a community exclusively of OC's richest and most powerful: it is all stately mansions. There are no overpriced 3 bed.2 bth ordinary shacks up there pretending to be a million $. Every property in NC is a palatial estate like the ones U see in certain sections of brentwood, bel aire, and bev hills-the vaunted hollywood hills,homes of the rich and famous. Only ths NC zip contains just mansions .

Any conclusions to be drawn about the state of Scal property values is meaningless by taking a sampling of mega -mansion properties from an exclusive preserve of OC's richest families.

[gman]

As a follow up to my previous post, note that the median in Newport Beach went up 66.8%. I think that speaks for itself. There's no way that houses in Newport Beach went up that much in the last year. It's just that the sales at the bottom dropped almost to zero. So, the drought is working it's way up to the higher-priced properties. Otherwise, there'd be some crazy discontinuity where a $1 million property would be only slightly less preferable than a $2.5 million property.

[gman]

peter m

There are actually plenty of tract homes in Newport Coast. They're just not selling. Check out MLS U8001321. It's a 3 bed, 3 bath with a 6,000 square foot lot for $1.2 million.

[peter m]

Hemet 92543 $250,000 $130,000 -48.0%
Twentynine Palms 92277 $150,000 $85,000 -43.3%
Moreno Valley 92553 $355,000 $201,500 -43.2%
Sun City 92587 $560,000 $322,500 -42.4%
Paramount 90723 $450,000 $260,000 -42.2%
Palmdale 93550 $325,000 $190,000 -41.5%
Moreno Valley 92551 $375,000 $229,500 -38.8%
Oxnard 93033 $520,000 $320,000 -38.5%
Lancaster 93534 $290,000 $180,000 -37.9%
Adelanto 92301 $283,000 $176,000 -37.8%

Just a few notes on locational specifics & properties of the IE/hi-desert boondocks.
Hemet used to be a laid back distant low rent retirement
community of trailer parks for retirees. It has been quite overrun with development and may i say trashed out by developers & hB'ers. It is dismal, bland & hot as hell with cheap malls & developments, as is much of the new IE urbanization. There are no decent jobs or actually nothing out there. Rather treeless and with barren rocky moonscapes, it is rather boring and isolated .
It is about 3 hrs of commute hell to get to LA and that is on a normal traffic commute without an insane traffic tieup. The monthly commute cost of gas & rapid car depreciation from commute wear & tear could now cost almost as much as the monthly mort on a $100,000 cheap reo hemet fixer.

Ditto for Lancaster, adelanto,
much of Moreno valley, outer parts of Palmdale, and Sun city. Cheap properties can be picked up in these moonscape areas for less than $100,000 but If U are a stupid specu-investor looking to buy in remote desert or IE boonie properties U will lose money over 10-15 years

[shockg]

Yup this data is meaningless because it doesnt support the sky is falling end of the world garbage many spew here.

So call will drop in prices for 30 yrs. Why bother buying? You should all move to the midwest. So ca sucks!! lol

[Laker]

puckhead wrote: "...houses will cost about the same as a tank of gas by 2010..."

Puckhead, From what i see at the pump now on daily basis, a tank of gas is climbing at a nice pace...about 2 cents a day per gallon. Houses are dropping about $2500 per week...it does seem that by 2010-2012 tank of gas will cost as much as the house....

Better, let's buy RVs and simply drive our houses...better pay DMV registration than crazy property taxes....

[peter m]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_/ai_13927682

The above link is from a 1993 article from dataquick pointing to large drops in median prices in expensive LA coastal zips. It took 2.5 to 3 years from peak in 1990 for westside and southbay homes to crash.

quotes;

"On the first point, high-priced homes are indeed on a much steeper downward slope than homes priced closer to the median."...

"According to Dataquick, a median-priced home in Beverly Hills (zip code 90210) hit a peak of $1,485,000 in November 1990. But as of February 1993, that figure has slid to $780,000, a 47.5 percent plummet.....

"In Brentwood, the price as of February 1993 had tumbled by 34.7 percent from its June 1990 peak, and in the Palos Verdes Peninsula, by 31 percent from its June 1990 peak"

[srla]

For everyone still clinging to the notion that peak bubble prices will somehow be maintained, despite all data to the contrary, YOU are the ones in need of a reality check.

Pricing lost touch with market forces (per-capita housing supply actually went UP during the bubble years) and now is returning to where it should be, based on hundred-year norms.

Yes, California has been more expensive than the national average since the late '70's and will likely stay so for the foreseeable future. But this long-term trend is completely distinct from the 300-500% speculative price escalation we saw between 2000-2006. How hard is it to understand that these are separate (if peripherally related) phenomena? I mean seriously!

Just because people are predicting an end to speculative bubble pricing doesn't mean they believe it will be CHEAP in So Cal, only that pricing will return to levels supported by local market fundamentals. This distinction should be clear to a fifth grader, so I don't know why so many adults have a hard time grasping it.

[GDC]

Very good find, peter m. I went through the 90s slump and I forgot how steep the decline was in the expensive areas. I do remember seeing listings in the Cheviot HIlls area in 98 where 2500 sq ft homes were listed for around $750k (now they are listed for $1.5m).

I think if banks get rid of interest only loans and insist on 20% down and income verification, the expensive areas will see a similar drop this time around too.