April DataQuick

It's kind of bizarre how DataQuick's median prices for Los Angeles County have flat-lined for four months now. Here are some highlights of their press release, which reinforce the Westside's current experience of record inventory and very low sales:

Foreclosure resales – homes sold in April that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – accounted for 53.6 percent of all Southland resales last month. It was the seventh consecutive month in which post-foreclosure properties made up more than half of all resales.

The deep discounts associated with foreclosures have created stiff competition for builders, who last month sold the lowest number of newly constructed homes for an April since at least 1988. ...

The sales picture was dramatically different in many older, high-end communities closer to the coast, where foreclosures and deep discounts are less common. Sales of existing houses remained at or near record lows for an April in markets such as Beverly Hills, Malibu, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Manhattan Beach and Pacific Palisades.

Among the reasons high-end sales remain so sluggish: The “jumbo” mortgages needed to buy such homes have been more expensive and much harder to obtain since August 2007, when the credit crunch hit. Before then, nearly 40 percent of Southland sales were financed with jumbo loans, then defined as over $417,000. Last month it was 10.9 percent.

In the more affordable inland areas, first-time buyers have relied heavily on government-insured FHA financing. Such loans were used to finance a near-record 39.1 percent of all Southland home purchases last month, up from 18.4 percent a year ago. In the Inland Empire, more than half of all April home purchases were financed with FHA loans. ...

“The problem,” [John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president] continued, “is that we still face two big threats to price stability: layoffs, which can cause foreclosures across the home price spectrum, and possibly a new round of foreclosures triggered by defaults on ‘option ARM’ and ‘stated income’loans used in mid-to high-end markets. Also of concern are reports of lenders holding back for many months before making a public foreclosure filing, which we track. If job cuts remain deep and foreclosures spike, then the past few months might later be viewed as nothing more than a brief calm before the next foreclosure storm.”

Median prices are down 45.5% for Los Angeles County from its peak in August 2007. Volumes were up 28% year-to-year from April 2008. (February DataQuick post; oops, I wiped out the March one)

This leaves Los Angeles County prices at April 2003, Orange County at November 2002, Ventura County at November 2002, and San Diego at February 2002.