Irvine home sales down 39% in June; median price down 15.4%

July 24th, 2008, 4:31 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Brian Martinez

The median home price for closed sales in all Irvine ZIP codes for June 2008 was $637,049, down 15.4 percent from $753,008 in the same month last year.

There were 144 closed sales in all Irvine ZIP codes during June, down 39 percent from the 237 sales in same month last year.

Countywide, the median is down 23 percent and sales are down 27 percent.

The facts that sales volume in Irvine is down significantly more than in O.C. as a whole while the median price in Irvine is down significantly less than in O.C. as a whole is probably due to Irvine seeing fewer foreclosures than the countywide market as a whole, said mark Boud, principal of Real Estate Economics in Irvine.

Foreclosures increase volume while driving sales down, he said. Irvine’s centrality to jobs is probably a key factor in its resistance to foreclusures, he added.

“If you have to be in a really bad market, Irvine is a nice place to be,” he said.

Here’s the ZIP-by-ZIP breakdown for Irvine, followed by more analysis from Boud.

ZIP code	Median	Year ago	Change	Sales	Year ago	Change
92602	$597,500	$753,468	-20.7%	22	22	0.0%
92603	$990,000	$1,085,526	-8.8%	19	37	-48.6%
92604	$530,000	$625,000	-15.2%	14	24	-41.7%
92606	$510,000	$606,421	-15.9%	17	26	-34.6%
92612	$532,500	$650,183	-18.1%	12	40	-70.0%
92614	$510,000	$554,951	-8.1%	14	26	-46.2%
92618	$505,000	$898,577	-43.8%	18	19	-5.3%
92620	$752,500	$778,180	-3.3%	28	43	-34.9%
Citywide	$637,049	$753,008	-15.4%	144	237	-39%
O.C.	$495,000	$645,372	-23%	1,930	2,640	-27%

The 43.8 percent median price drop in ZIP code 92618 - which includes the new Woodbury village - is probably due to the small sample size as well as the fact that most of the home in the area were recently built, Boud said. Most of the homes in the area were sold for the first time in 2004 and 2005, which was the top of the market, he said.

The 70 percent drop in sales volume for ZIP code 92612 - which includes University Park and Turtle Rock - is probably because it is a high-demand and well-established community, Boud said. That dynamic creates a low turnover rate overall, and long-time owners have more equity and smaller mortgages, which makes them more foreclosure-resistant.

The citywide and year-ago medians listed are weighted average medians derived from ZIP code totals. Core data provided by DataQuick.

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