Some believe Long Beach, Calif., won't be hit hard by real estate slump
LONG BEACH -- It was a scary October for home sales
in Southern California, a real estate report issued
Tuesday shows.
Last month was the slowest October for the region
in a decade, according to a report by DataQuick Information
Systems.
A total of 22,117 new and resale homes were sold
in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San
Bernardino and Orange counties in October, according
to the DataQuick report.
That number was down 22.4 percent from October a
year ago, and sales were down 2.4 percent from September,
according to DataQuick.
Last month's sales were the lowest October since
1996, when 18,505 homes were sold, according to DataQuick's
statistics.
"Buyers are taking their time, trying to wait
out the uncertainty in a market that is rebalancing
itself," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick's
president.
The median price for a Southland home in October
was $484,000. The median was up 2.3 percent from a
year ago and unchanged from September.
Some say to expect Long Beach's housing market to
remain steady compared with other areas, as the city
has a shortage of housing stock and virtually no open
land to build.
Janine Schonert, an agent with Keller Williams Realty
in Los Alamitos, said she recently held an open house
in Signal Hill and had 16 perspective buyers walk
through.
The home sold in two weeks she said, adding: "We
were getting all kinds of buyer calls." However,
other local agents have reported sluggish sales and
buyers expecting sellers to lower prices to move a
home.
Economists say the national housing market peaked
in August 2005, and for this year expectations are
that existing-home sales will fall by 9 percent, and
new-home sales will drop 17 percent. Prices have already
begun to fall in some markets, such as San Diego.
