Orange County rises to No. 1 home-price gains in US on high-end rush

“How expensive?” tracks measurements of California’s totally unaffordable housing market.

The pain: Orange County home prices are rising at the fastest pace in the nation, and you can blame the high-end buyer for that.

The source: My trusty spreadsheet reviewed home price indexes from First American Data & Anaytics for 30 US cities as of May, including five in California. The yardsticks have a curious twist – tracking appreciation by breaking the markets into three price slices: starter homes, mid-tier and luxury residences.

The pinch

Overall, Orange County prices rose 10.5% in the past 12 months, the No. 1 gain of the 30. That was driven by a 12.3% jump for luxury homes – also No. 1 among the 30 markets.

The county also had a 10.9% increase for its mid-section market (No. 2) but “only” a 8.3% rise for the starter segment (No. 6).

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Clearly, there are a lot of deep-pocketed buyers looking at Orange County’s more-expensive housing.

This is a different pattern than the nation overall, where house hunters bid up the lower-priced residences.

The median overall gain for the 30 US cities was 4.2% with increases of 3.9% for luxury vs. 4.1% in the middle and 4.6% for the most affordable housing.

Pressure points

A high-end push was also seen in San Diego County where prices rose 8.4% overall (No. 3 of 30) – with gains of 10% luxury (No. 2) vs. 8.7% mid (No. 4) vs. 6.6% starter (No. 10).

A modestly similar swing was found in the Inland Empire: Up 3.7% overall (No. 18) – with gains of 5% luxury (No. 14) vs. 3.5% mid (No. 19) and 4% starter (No. 20).

Elsewhere in California, the cheaper slice of the market was the appreciation leader.

Los Angeles County: 3.8% gains overall (No. 17) – 3.1% luxury (No. 21) vs. 4.1% mid (No. 16) vs. 4.9% starter (No. 14).

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Alameda/Contra Costa counties: 3.2% gains overall (No. 21) – 3.5% luxury (No. 17) vs. 0.8% mid (No. 27) vs. 4.2% starter (No. 17).

Sacramento: 2.8% gains overall (No. 22) – 2.1% luxury (No. 26) vs. 4.6% mid (No. 12) vs. 3% starter (No. 26).

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com