SoCal home values down to 2004 levels, but not everywhere

There's a story in today's L.A. Times citing the latest Dataquick statistics, and of course the news remains grim: sales down by 13.6% from last June and median prices falling by over 29%:

The median home sales price was $355,000 in June, down 29.3% from a year ago. Home values are now on par with what they were in early 2004... The volume of home sales did rise 3% from May, but analysts attributed that uptick to bargain hunters snapping up foreclosed homes at steep discounts. Foreclosed homes made up 41.1% of the homes sold in June, the first time the percentage has topped 40% in this real estate cycle. Last June, foreclosed homes made up just 7.3% of home sales... Price declines continued to be more severe in the Inland Empire, where overbuilding was more prevalent. But Los Angeles and Orange counties recorded median price declines of 24% and 23%, respectively, in June from a year ago. Year-to-year price declines in L.A. and Orange Counties had remained below 20% as recently as March.

However, these are still regional stats, and specific neighborhoods perform differently due to proximity to employment, transit, shopping and other factors. That's why I really liked the following map created by Tim Nebb, who blogs for the Los Angeles region for Redfin. Here's what he found:






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.

So is this accurate? For my particular piece of Sherman Oaks, I'd say yes. Maps like this are also a great opportunity for local papers such as the L.A. Times, the Daily News, etc., both in print and online. Assuming, of course, they have the staff to create them.