Laguna Beach Home Sales Up 70% in April

The foreclosure surge doesn't seem to have slowed down the Laguna Beach real estate market as it has with other high-end cities. Buyer activity continues to push the South Coast city’s housing sector up in the second quarter, going up 70% last month compared to the same period last year.

A total of 34 homes were sold in Laguna Beach in April 2010, compared to only about 20 a year ago. Experts attribute the increase to the home buying surge that normally comes in the second quarter, as well as the growing number of distressed properties - short sales and foreclosures - that have entered the market at below-average prices.

Laguna Beach also remains on the high end of O.C. in terms of median selling price. Homes sold for an average of $1.16 million - lower than the usual $2 million or so for the city but still a good 170% higher than the countywide median. Last year, Laguna's median was only 162% than O.C. prices.

Other beach towns, including Newport and Huntington Beach, also did particularly well in the home sale department. Home sales for coastal Orange County totaled 460, up 22% over the year, while the rest of the county went up 12% to 2,669 homes. Median prices were up 4.6% to $677,250 for beach towns and 13.2% to $430,000 countywide.

The data was provided by real estate information firm DataQuick based on records from the 22 business days ending April 30th, the latest information available. The study takes in sales and inventory data from throughout Orange County, classified by ZIP and neighborhood.

 

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