Northwest Compton is clawing back pretty impressively from the housing crash--during the downturn, the area's home prices dropped from a peak of $385,000 all the way down to $94,000. As of the end of 2012, median home prices are up 96.8 percent from the second quarter of 2009 (but still only to $185,000), for "the biggest percentage gain in the Southland." The LA Times crunched DataQuick's numbers to put together a top 10 list of recovery success stories--the top slot is probably the most surprising; besides Compton and a handful of other working class areas, it's mostly rich neighborhoods that have done the best bouncing back. Here's the breakdown:
Neighborhood: San Diego's "hip South Park and adjacent neighborhoods"
Recovery: 96.4 percent
Median home price: $299,000
Neighborhood: Hancock Park/Koreatown
Recovery: 85.8 percent
Median home price: $1.05 million
Neighborhood: Cardiff by the Sea
Recovery: 81 percent
Median home price: $860,000
Neighborhood: "Two blue-collar sections of San Bernardino" (92411 and 92405)
Recovery: 79.4 percent and 76.9 percent
Median home price: $96,000 and $115,000
Neighborhood: Newport Coast
Recovery: 76.7 percent
Median home price: $2.885 million
Neighborhood: Westlake Village
Recovery: 73.5 percent
Median home price: $1.1275 million
Neighborhood: Banning
Recovery: 68.4 percent
Median home price: $141,000
Neighborhood: Central Escondido
Recovery: 67.4 percent
Median home price: $370,000
Basically all the neighborhoods are popular with bargain-hunters--in fancy areas, anyone who can afford it is taking advantage of the drop in prices; in less-fancy areas, "investors are scooping up run-down properties." Plus, prices dropped off so much that any gains look pretty impressive.
Southern California home prices (for single-family, non-new houses anyway) is up 34.5 percent. Median prices peaked in the second quarter of 2007 ($550,000) and bottomed out in the first quarter of 2009 ($249,000). At the end of 2012, they were at $335,000. Meanwhile, Arcadia, which never had much of a fall-off, is the only SoCal zip code to have soared passed its median home price peak--it's all the way up at $1.199 million.
· Southland housing market's 10 fastest-recovering ZIP Codes [LAT]
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