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Condominium sales slowed by double-digits in October, reflecting a wider sales slowdown across Southern California.
Condo sales dipped 19 percent in October in the area encompassing L.A.’s Westside, Hollywood, Tri-Cities, Downtown, and Koreatown, according to a new Polaris Pacific report. The dip topped double digits in all those areas other than Koreatown, where sales were up by nearly 55 percent over October 2017.
Koreatown was also the only market of the five to see a noticeable drop in median price per square foot, at 6.3 percent.
There were 1,093 closings in October across all five markets. While sales were off, the median price rose 7.3 percent to $804,000.
The Westside’s $975,000 median price was the highest of all the markets, while the $590,500 in the Tri-Cities was the lowest. The Tri-Cities — Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank — saw the most significant dip in sales and the most significant increase in median price per square foot at 38.1 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.
In San Diego, the trend repeated, with closings falling 13.3 percent in October, while sales rose 6.6 percent.
The figures reflect a wider trend across Los Angeles and Southern California. A combination of high pricing and growing interest rates have slowed sales. Southern California saw its slowest September in a decade for existing home and condo sales this year.
Months of inventory shot up 68.3 percent to 3.8 months, but that snapshot is part of a wider trend. Inventory dropped during 2017 before steadily increasing this year to an annual level roughly consistent with 2014-2016.
The Polaris Pacific report also studied pricing across building types. Prices at buildings four stories or less increased 13.7 percent year-over-year to $770 per square foot. They tipped by about a percentage point at mid-rise buildings to $734 per square foot and increased at buildings above 13 stories by 5.2 percent to $895 per square foot.
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