SoCal Home Sales Stall During Economic Uncertainty

Home sales have flattened and bidding wars have become scarce across Southern California in the wake of national trade tariffs and a rocky stock market.

Sales tallies show that 11,966 homes changed hands across the six-county region in February, 13 fewer than a year earlier, the Orange County Register reported, citing figures from Attom.

It’s the third-lowest sales total for a February in records dating to 2005.

Home sales also were down between 5 percent and 8 percent in Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.

“Political machinations and current events and how a volatile stock market and bond market have been have kind of taken some of the momentum out of the recovery in the first quarter,” Jordan Levine, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, told the Register.

The inventory of homes on the market rose as buyers have become more hesitant, agents say.

At the same time, home prices have continued to rise, climbing 5 percent and matching record highs in Orange and Ventura counties.

The median price for a Southern California home was $823,000 in February, or $3,000 below the region’s all-time high reached last May.

Home prices have ticked up for the past 13 years, Attom figures show. The region’s median price has nearly tripled since the spring of 2012.

At the same time, the pace of price appreciation has slowed, with February’s 5 percent year-over-year gain tied for the third-lowest appreciation rate of the past 17 months.

One possible reason is employment growth in the region has slowed, according to economist Richard Green, director of USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.

“The economic fundamentals here have weakened,” Green told the Register. “I think the tariffs could really hit us especially hard, because we have by far the largest ports in the country. Most of the stuff that comes through them is from China. That’s going to matter to us,” Green added.

There also are signs of increased sales demand in neighborhoods next to the Los Angeles County fire zones in Altadena, the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, as some residents opt to buy now rather than spend years rebuilding.

Neighborhoods like Beverly Hills, the South Bay, Santa Monica and Palos Verdes also are seeing sales to fire victims, according to Levine.

As of February, Southern California homes were averaging close to 50 days on the market, compared with an average 37 days over the past two years, according to Redfin.

The number of homes selling above their asking prices also fell to 37 percent, down from a 44 percent average over the previous two years.

In Los Angeles County, the median price of a home in February rose 4 percent to $900,000, while sales were up 8 percent to 4,456 deals, according to the Register.

In Orange County, the median price rose 4.3 percent to $1.2 million, while sales were up 1.3 percent to 1,742 deals.— Dana Bartholomew