Maybe we can save this article for later ridicule.

Slump spares a few areas

Median home prices rise in Encinitas, La Jolla, Ocean Beach
By Lori Weisberg

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 16, 2008
As median home prices continue to decline, it seems no community is immune to the slumping real estate market. And yet, during the last quarter a few coastal areas were able to eke out a healthy rate of price appreciation reminiscent of the housing boom.

PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Environmental attorney Laura Godfrey, with her beagles Isabella and William, recently sold her Ocean Beach cottage of two years and traded it in for a significant upgrade to a $957,000 Spanish revival house with an ocean view.
Take Ocean Beach, which experienced a 14.4 percent year-over-year increase in the median price of a resale home during the first quarter of this year. By comparison, resale home prices for the entire county fell 21 percent during the same period, according to statistics released yesterday by DataQuick Information Systems.

In fact, prices declined for all but three of the county’s 59 ZIP codes that recorded at least 20 sales between Jan. 1 and March 31 of this year and last.

Graphic:

Top and bottom neighborhoods
for home resales, first quarter 2008
Bucking the trend were Encinitas, La Jolla and Ocean Beach, which experienced price gains, while in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach, the median price remained relatively unchanged from last year to this.

That comes as little surprise to real estate agent Cindy Wing, who sells homes in the 92107 ZIP code, which includes Ocean Beach, Sunset Cliffs and part of Point Loma.

“We’re selling paradise because it’s the beach, and it’s beautiful,” Wing said. “That’s how I feel when I sell. It’s kind of a vacation feel in your everyday life. And it’s affordable compared to areas like Del Mar and La Jolla.”

How neighborhoods compare
Median home prices in San Diego County neighborhoods varied dramatically in the first quarter of the year.

The biggest decline was in west Escondido, ZIP code 92029, where the median price was down 42.9 percent.

The best performance was in Ocean Beach, ZIP 92107, where the median was up 14.4 percent.

More information: A list of the top 10 and bottom 10 neighborhoods can be found on Page C3. A full list is available online at uniontrib.com/more/zipcodes.

Ocean Beach’s allure as a funky beach community with a strong sense of neighborhood has helped draw buyers, even in tough economic times, although sales last quarter were still down 37 percent from a year ago. And prices remain high, with the median cost of a home at $829,500, compared with $725,000 a year earlier, according to DataQuick.

Laura Godfrey, an environmental attorney, recently sold her Ocean Beach cottage of two years and traded it in for a significant upgrade to a $957,000 Spanish revival house with an ocean view. While she broke even on the sale of her house, she was able to buy her new house for nearly $350,000 less than the original asking price.

“I feel a little stretched, but I have the income potential, and I plan to stay here for awhile,” said Godfrey, 31. “I joke around that people will be dragging my body out of here in 50 years.

“And I love Ocean Beach. I come from a small town, and this is a small town within a big city and it’s a short commute from downtown,” she said. “I know all my neighbors, and I feel safe as a single female here. Also, I surf, so I can walk down to the beach with my board. I like my life.”

There is little for homeowners to like, though, about the steep plunge in home values in inland areas such as west Escondido, Encanto, Paradise Hills, Fallbrook and Spring Valley, which experienced declines of 30 percent or more last quarter.

AdvertisementPart of the blame may lie with the high number of foreclosures some of these neighborhoods have experienced, which in turn drag prices down for the whole area, say real estate agents.
“I think we’ve all seen that folks are out looking at the bargains, so those are a large percentage of what’s selling – the bank foreclosures and short sale properties,” said Lori Staehling, president of the San Diego Association of Realtors. “They’re generally in poor condition, and the banks want 30-day sales, so prices are lower.

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean every home in the county has gone down by those percentages.”

In Encanto, where the median price of a resale home slid nearly 38 percent last quarter compared with a year earlier, foreclosure sales have been on the rise, said real estate agent Steve Lemack. Making matters worse, many disgruntled owners who have lost their homes have stripped them clean, depressing prices further, he said.

“We had one house where the bank offered the tenants $2,500 relocation assistance, but the day we were supposed to go to give the check, no one was there, and the owners had stripped the kitchen of the counters, the sink and all the appliances, the water heater and the toilets. They even dug up the trees in the backyard,” Lemack said.

“I could’ve sold it for $250,000, but we sold it for $200,000. So when other agents get comps, they use lowball comparisons to push properties down further.”

In west Escondido, typically an area of the city that has higher-priced homes, foreclosures were also a factor, although to a lesser degree. During the first quarter, foreclosure resales accounted for roughly half of the 24 homes sold, according to DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage.

Realtor Joda Mize has a slightly different perspective.

“This area is known as a very nice area, and it has the highest list price of the four Escondido ZIP codes,” she said. “When you have a depreciating market, higher-priced homes won’t sell as quickly because buyers are right now looking for the great deals out there, and they want to capitalize on that.”

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