Orange County has 12 fewer ZIP codes with million-dollar median prices since May as its roster of neighborhoods with $750,000 pricing or less grew by nine.
My trusty spreadsheet, filled with December homebuying stats from CoreLogic for 83 Orange County ZIP codes, showed how home pricing has changed since spring — “expensive” ZIPs (median selling prices $1 million and higher) vs. “affordable” neighborhoods (medians of $750,000 or below). December’s $933,500 countywide median is off 1% in one year and down 11% from May’s $1.054 million record high.
LA-Orange County home sales plummet 46% to record low
In December, Orange County had 35 seven-figure ZIPs with 680 sales — 38% of all purchases vs. 17 affordable ZIPs with 375 sales, or 21% of all purchases. Compare that to November with 34 seven-figure ZIPs with 740 sales — 42% of all purchases and 12 affordable ZIPs with 266 sales, or 15% of all purchases.
But the big change is from the market’s recent peak in May when O.C. had 47 seven-figure ZIPs with 1,524 sales — 52% of all purchases. That month there were just eight affordable ZIPs with 324 sales or 11% of all purchases.
And in December 2021, there were 33 million-dollar ZIPs with 1,320 transactions — 44% of all purchases vs. nine bargain ZIPs with 298 sales or a 10% slice.
Pandemic twists
Ponder how the pandemic’s economic ebbs and flows twisted local home pricing.
Coronavirus initially sparked a homebuying spree. The number of million-dollar Orange County neighborhoods has grown by 22 since February 2020, the last month before the virus upended the market. Meanwhile, O.C. lost 28 affordable ZIPs since the pandemic struck.
Consider that in February 2020, there were 13 ZIPs above $1 million with 250 closings — a 10% slice vs. 45 sub-$750,000 ZIPs with 1,077 purchases, or 44% of all sales.
House hunting would later cool in 2022 as lofty pricing and sharply rising mortgage rates squashed affordability.
So, December had 40%…
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