A fascinating map in today's Los Angeles Times shows the August 2006-to-August 2007 rises and falls in median home prices across the Southland, a region that encompasses Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties. What's most striking about the map--apart from the washed-out pink and green colors and its prominence above the fold on page 1--is the degree to which the housing market's gains and pains vary from one ZIP code to the next.
Median prices that top $1 million rose dramatically in such luxury communities as Encino, Pasadena, Bel-Air, Fullerton, Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano while median prices in the low-$200,000s and mid-$400,000 declined significantly in outlying places like Oxnard, Lancaster and San Berdoo. In between were communities such as Arcadia, which posted a 23% decline in its $739,000 median price, and Riverside, which posted a comparable gain in its $525,000 median.
In my neighborhood, the median price rose 2.1% to $832,500. Wow.