O.C. Buyers Living High Life As Market Bounces Back

Mansion mania: Sales of $1 million-and-up homes in Orange County last year rose nearly 40% from 1996, reports Richard C. Poucher, who monitors home sales for county Realtors’ groups. Poucher’s statistics showed 323 such sales handled by real estate agents in 1997, up from 232 a year earlier.

The top end of the market has led the recent resurgence in California, with statewide sales of million-dollar homes up 42%, according to Acxiom/DataQuick Information Systems, which tracks sales. One reason for the higher count is higher prices, DataQuick President Mike Ela said. Homes selling for $800,000 or $900,000 a year or two ago are now fetching $1 million.

DataQuick reported an especially strong increase in million-dollar sales in the Silicon Valley, where these transactions virtually doubled. The biggest hotbed for these sales remains the Malibu-Santa Monica-

West Los Angeles region. Beverly Hills alone had 231 of these sales last year, up from 185 in 1996.

To no one’s surprise, Newport Beach, including Corona del Mar, had Orange County’s highest count last year. DataQuick counted 141 million-dollar sales in the city, up from 100 in 1996. The

92651 ZIP code, which includes most of Laguna Beach, had 52, up from 34.

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E. Scott Reckard covers real estate for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at [email protected]