Housing prices in area continue their tailspin

GLENDALE — In step with Southern California’s downward housing trend, October marked the slowest month this year in Glendale’s single-family residential real estate market, a sign that buyers are fewer and pickier, market watchers say.

The number of deals for single-family homes that closed in October dropped to 48, a 20% change from the 60 homes that sold in September, according to a monthly report from DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla-based real estate information service.

The median home price, which is the point at which half the home prices are higher and half are lower, increased from the same month last year in only one of the city’s eight ZIP Codes.

Among eight homes sold in the 91208 ZIP Code, which encompasses the Verdugo Woodlands area west of the Glendale (2) Freeway and Oakmont Country Club, the median price increased 27.8% to $978,000.

But in other Glendale areas, prices fell from 4.7% to 32.9%.

In Northwest Glendale, between Grandview Avenue and the city’s western border, the median price among seven homes sold was $705,000, down 14% from last year, according to DataQuick.

The Chevy Chase and Glenoaks Canyon neighborhoods — where more homes were sold than in any other city ZIP Code — home sales and prices also took a dive. Among the 10 homes sold, the median price fell 18.5% to $609,000. Those numbers reflect a 9.7% drop in median price and a 33% drop in volume from September this year, when 15 homes sold with a median price of $675,000.

The sharpest decline in median price was in the area that includes Kenneth Village and Cumberland Heights, where the median price among seven homes sold fell 32.9% to $580,000.

“The numbers aren’t looking so good,” said Shirley Ann Hill, a real estate agent who has focused on the Glendale market for 17 years. “But I still feel it’s so important that we all try and see the glass as half full and not half empty because the market is really kind of a good, normal market. What it isn’t is that outrageous market that we had come accustomed to.”

The areas that have recently seen the sharpest decline in median price are the same neighborhoods where a buying and selling frenzy, which climaxed in 2005, disproportionately pushed prices to record levels, Hill said.

And while the median price is a commonly used tool for measuring change in local markets, a dip in the median or average price does not necessarily mean that prices are generally tanking, said Gerri Cragnotti, owner of G&C Realty in Glendale.

More likely, the recent drop in median prices means that lower-priced homes are the ones selling right now, Cragnotti said.

The slowdown in volume is due in part to tighter lending standards and the fact that buyers are sensing that prices will continue to fall, Hill said.

“There is abundant inventory, and buyers can be picky again,” she said.

For some, the slowing market presents opportunities more than it forecasts gloom.

“With interest rates still at historic lows, it’s the perfect storm to buy,” Cragnotti said.

 RYAN VAILLANCOURT covers business, politics and the foothills. He may be reached at (818) 637-3215 or by e-mail at ryan.vaillancourt@latimes.com.