Ojai Home Prices Continue Slide

Number of sales begins to rebound as July closing highest since ‘07

By Daryl Kelley
It’s been nearly five years since homes in Ojai sold for so little.
The 15 houses and condominiums that closed escrow in July sold for an average of $460,000, the lowest average sales price since Ojai homes sold for a mean of $433,000 in December of 2003, according to an authoritative real estate information service.
Last month’s sales price compares with an average of $988,000 for 21 sales in July of 2007, and is the lowest selling price for purchases completed during that prime sales month since 2001, reported Melissa Data, an Orange County business firm.
And for the first two weeks of August, the average sales price remained below $500,000, the data firm reported.
All numbers are for the 93023 postal zip code, which includes Ojai, Meiners Oaks, Mira Monte and the Upper Ojai Valley.
Meanwhile, the average sales price in the rest of the Ojai Valley including Oak View — in the 93022 zip code — was $437,000 for five sales in July and $404,000 for seven sales for the first two weeks of August.
But even as prices have tumbled locally, the number of sales has begun to rebound. The 15 closed sales in the Ojai area in July ties the highest number in a month since last fall.
That sales increase is the result of bargain prices and is a sign that investors are buying up foreclosed homes that have pushed the market downward for 18 months, experts said.
“Certainly, we’ve rolled back to at least 2004 prices,” said Tom Weber, president of the Ojai Valley Board of Realtors. “The toughest part right now are homes from $600,000 to $1.1 million. Things are selling: they just have to be priced very aggressively.”
Weber said he’s telling sellers: “If you don’t have to sell right now, then don’t. But if you do, price it right.”
Even at reduced prices, the average time it takes to sell a house has spiraled upward to nearly five months, according to the valley Realtors board. There are 222 houses on the market this week, compared with 168 in January and just over 200 last fall.
“We have a wealth of great listings right now,” said agent Sharon MaHarry. “But a lot of potential buyers have been sitting on the fence waiting for the bottom ... They’re very savvy buyers. A lot of investors.”
In just the last week, however, several high-end and ultra-expensive homes have closed escrow, said MaHarry, who specializes in that market. “Other agents say they’ve seen the same thing.”
Since closed sales reflect escrows typically begun 45 days earlier, MaHarry said she expects sales and price data reported for September and October to be much higher than the July and August figures.
Veteran agent Riki Strandfeldt also said that the low July prices are for so few houses that they may simply be a statistical blip to be replaced with higher numbers when sales of a few expensive sales push that average upward.
Still, a glance at the average sales prices for July for the last few years tells a compelling story: Beginning in July 2002, when 45 homes sold for an average of $472,000, prices pushed upward to a high of $988,000 in July of 2007. Now, this July’s average price was about half that amount.
Until this year, Ojai’s real estate market had shown a remarkable resiliency to a deepening recession in home sales, as prices held relatively firm and sales were off far less than in other parts of Ventura County and Southern California.
But the effects of three years of declining sales and prices have finally taken their toll locally.
Weber said he recently sold a foreclosed home in Oak View for $375,000: “That same house at the height of the market in 2005 sold for $550,000,” he said.
Strandfeldt, past president of the Realtors board, said she’s working to sell two homes in which owners are behind on their payments and which will probably sell for far less than owed on mortgages.
One Oak View home needs to sell in the high $500,000s to pay off its mortgage, “but if we’re lucky it will sell in the mid-$400,000s,” she said.
Weber said Ojai home prices are down about 30 percent from the height of the market in 2005, but he said they will rise again.
“We’re three years into this downturn, and already sales are starting to pick up,” he said. In his 30 years in Ojai real estate sales, Weber said he’s been through three such up-then-down cycles.
“The difference is that this time the up side was higher, so we’re taking a bigger hit on the down side,” he said. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
And one blessing remains for Ojai homeowners, he said. The recession hit later here, and the recovery typically hits sooner, he said.
“Ojai is a gem,” he said. “We’re a small area and we’re very desirable.”