What has happened to West Orange County Real Estate prices during the last year? In this article, we report on the prices for completed sales of residential real estate for Seal Beach—College Park East, Leisure World, Old Town, and the rest of Seal Beach—Los Alamitos, and Rossmoor. Here we present a comparison of sales during May 2010 and May 2009. There were no transactions in either period for College Park West.
College Park East
The average sales price of the three College Park East homes sold in May 2010 was $753,000, an increase of $90,500, or 14% over the average of the two houses sold in May 2009. But, this increase is only the result of selling larger homes this year—the per square foot selling price fell from $391.67 last year, to $316.87 in May 2010. That is a decrease of 19%.
In the current year, the average selling price/sf was dragged down by the home at 4256 Candleberry. This much larger than average five bedroom home has a total of 3,200 sf on a typical 5,400 sf lot. The selling price for this home was $780,000.
This selling price is only $61,000 higher than the lowest priced and smallest home sold during the current month, which was the house at 4357 Ironwood Ave. The Ironwood home has only 1,910 sf, yet it sold for $719,000, or $376.44/sf. The Candleberry house sold for only $243.75/sf and this brought the average down.
Leisure World
Both the average selling price and the per foot selling price for Leisure World increased from last May. With a total of 31 units sold in May 2010, the average total selling price was $123,833. The total selling price increased by 15% over the amount from one year ago of $107,239.
Last year there were 41 sales in May with an average selling price per square foot of $131.35. For the current year, the average per square foot selling price was $144.27, an increase of 10%.
Old Town
There is an extremely wide range of properties in Old Town and only three transactions this May, so averages are not very meaningful. Here is a summary of the three May 2010 Old Town completed sales:
Address SqFt Total Sales Price SqFt Price Sold
227 Seal Beach Blvd 2700 $1,040,000 $385.19
121 5th St 1343 $925,000 $688.76
211 7th Street 460 $501,500 $1,090.22
Average $822,167 $721.39
Not included in the above table is one sale for a three unit property located at 1207 Ocean Ave. According to Glenn Gaspar of First American Team Realty, “The home located at 211 7th Street is an original beach bungalow from 1922 which they use to build in Seal Beach. Its location is just north of Central Avenue on 7th, a block north from the beach. The lot is small approximately 2,937 sqft. Someone buying this home will more then likely knock down the present home and build themselves a nice, new, larger home.”
In May 2009, there were five properties sold in Old Town, with an average selling price of $1,002,000. The square foot average selling price for May 2009 was $654.87.
Other Seal Beach
For the rest of Seal Beach, there were only two transactions in both May 2009 and May 2010. The average total selling price for this year was $840,000, an increase of $59,500, or 8% over the average of $780,500 from one year ago.
On a square foot basis, the selling prices increased by 36%, from $437.60, last year, to $595.78 for May 2010. Both of the houses sold this year are relatively small on normal sized lots. The property at 715 Driftwood Ave has only 1,311 square feet, but at a total selling price of $840,000, the per sf price was a whopping $640.73.
Los Alamitos
For Los Alamitos, the average total selling price fell substantially, but again, it was because of different house sizes. The average selling price per square foot, increased slightly. There were four properties sold in May of both years.
This May, the average total selling price for homes in Los Al was $498,750, down $85,000, or 15% from the average of $583,750 from May 2009. But three of the four houses sold this year were smaller than all but one of the homes sold last year. At 2,750 sf, the house located at 3991 Shasta Ave was the only house sold this May in Los Al with more than 1,050 sf. Thus, this year’s average selling price per sf was $396.38, up $9/sf, or 2% from the $387.43 of May 2009.
Rossmoor
Just like Los Alamitos, but more extreme, the average total selling price for Rossmoor went down, but the per square foot selling price increased. But, unlike Los Al, the number of transactions in Rossmoor doubled from three last May, to six this May.
The total average selling price for this May in Rossmoor was $692,500, down $49,166, or 7%, below the average of $741,666 from May 2009. But five of the six homes sold were smaller than 1,731 square feet and the only larger property was only 2,396 sf. Last May, all three homes sold were at least 2,100 square feet.
This May, the average selling price per sf was $387.99, up $51.00, or 15% from the average of $337.01 last May. The Rossmoor house with the highest per square foot selling price this May was the property located at 3251 Tigertail Dr. This four bedroom home sold for $720,000, but with only 1,659 square feet, the price per sf was 434.00.
All of the data in this article was supplied by Glenn Gaspar, REALTOR® with First American Team Realty, Inc.
Return to www.OC180NEWS.com next Monday for our continuing biweekly series on countywide residential real estate supply and demand trends.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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