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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Valley Home Prices Hit Record High

Home sales are rising even as home prices hit record highs amid a 31-percent drop in inventory. That is the takeaway from a Southland Regional Association of Realtors report on the residential markets in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita Valley published in November. The median price of a single-family home sold during October in the San Fernando Valley hit a record high $755,000, up 11.4 percent from a year ago, according to the report. It handily beat the prior record of $735,000 set in July and marked the fifth consecutive month with the median price above the once impenetrable benchmark of $700,000. The condominium median price for October was $435,000, which was down 1.1 percent from a year ago and 4.4 percent below the record high condo price of $455,000 posted in June and in August. The median price is the midpoint of all sales, with half the sales posting a higher price and half lower. “There’s plenty of buyer resistance to higher prices, but truly motivated buyers understand that opportunities to buy are limited,” said SRAR President Dan Tresierras. “Interest rates that are at their lowest point in three years help offset some of the impact of high prices, but we’re once again starting to see a dwindling supply of properties for sale.” From August 2018 through May of this year, inventory grew as high as more than 40 percent per month. However, in June that trend reversed. October became the fifth consecutive monthly drop in the number of homes listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service. The 1,100 active listings at the end of themonth represents a drop of 31.3 percent from a year ago and represented a mere 1.7-month supply at the current pace of sales. By comparison, the 33-year average was a 6.0-month supply. The October inventory total was closer to the record low of 819 listings reported in December 2017 than the record high 14,976 listings back in July 1992. “Owners who in generations past would have been selling, now are refinancing or remodeling,” said SRAR Chief Executive Tim Johnson. “People are locked out of the market or locked in place by California’s severe housing shortage.” The 462 homes that changed owners during October represented a 2.2 percent increase from a year ago.

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