July 3, 2008

The Chill is On

Temperatures may climb over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, but home prices continue to cool.  According to DataQuick, the median price of a San Fernando Valley home in May fell 27% from a year before. 

I wanted to see at a glance how different areas of the Valley fared in this decline.  So I used DataQuick’s Southern California home resale data for May as published in the Los Angeles Times and filtered it for Valley zip codes and cities.  I combined and averaged the single-family home data - condo data excluded - for cities and neighborhoods comprising multiple zips like Glendale (8 zip codes), Burbank (5) and North Hollywood (4).  Then I sorted the cities by per cent decline from the year before.

The map below is the result.  No area of the Valley escaped price decline (save one zip code - see below) but some suffered far more than others.   The legend indicates colors representing the degree of year-over-year decline.

A few notes: there were significant variations on percentage decline between zip codes in the same city area - Glendale zip codes varied from 15% to 35%, for example, and North Hollywood from 7% to 35%.  This map represents averages. 

Also, the Northridge area data is skewed by the DataQuick numbers for zip code 91325, which showed an 18% increase in median price, a figure that is almost certainly an aberration.  It’s the only zip code in the Valley to show a price increase, and it’s sharply at odds with both adjacent Northridge zips and DataQuick data from previous months (in April, 91325 was down 20.9%; in January 11.1%)  If we throw out this data point, Northridge falls in the range of 20%-30% down, along with neighboring Granada Hills and many of the Valley’s southern areas.

Universal City is shown only as a point of reference - as far as I know there is no residential property in zip code 91608, though it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that a few workaholics practically live in their executive suites in the Black Tower.

Finally, props to the city of San Fernando (May median price $390,000 - down 16% YOY) for weathering the decline even better than its more upscale brethren Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills (both down 19% YOY).

Have a great Fourth of July holiday, San Fernandiños!