December 15th, 2006
Kurt Galitski featured in Daily Pilot cover story!
By Amanda Pennington/Daily Pilot

~Price bumps, bumps in road~
Home prices rise in Westside, Eastside Costa Mesa, but not South Coast Metro or Newport Beach.

Despite reports this year of a sluggish real estate market, Costa Mesa experienced slight gains in November compared with last year. But Newport Beach showed slippage in home prices.

The prices of Costa Mesa homes, though, still lag behind their beachfront neighbors by hundreds of thousands of dollars. But more home buyers are looking to Costa Mesa now than Newport Beach.

The median prices of homes in the 92627 ZIP Code, which includes Westside and Eastside Costa Mesa, jumped more than 5% in November, compared with the same period last year, according to a report released Wednesday by DataQuick Information Services, a company that tracks real estate figures in the state.

But the prices in the 92626 zip code, which encompasses the north end of the city and the South Coast Metro area, did not follow that upward trend, decreasing in number of sales and home prices.

One reason for the majority of Costa Mesa's increase is "bottom-line economics," said Kurt Galitski, vice-president of Costa Mesa-based Weichman Associates Realtors.

"It all comes down to affordability and what you get for your money in Costa Mesa versus other competing cities," Galitski said.

Galitski noted that shopping, entertainment, arts, culture and drive-times are all things buyers take into consideration when thinking about one of the biggest investments they may make. "We've always been the stepchild of some of these [neighboring] cities," Galitski said. "People are finally coming around and realizing Costa Mesa has a lot to offer."

For those who still want to be close to the beach, Galitski said, they can in Costa Mesa, while being closer to the freeway and important fixtures in shopping, arts and entertainment.

But Newport Beach isn't exactly struggling when it comes to its housing market.

"Newport Beach is a real estate economy of its own," said Bob Chapman, vice president of Prudential California in Orange County. "It's a micro-economy — it really goes at its own pace."

There's also typically a slowdown at this time of year. That coupled with the high number of houses on the market can explain the numbers, Galitski said.

Despite lowering median home prices — a median home price is the price that's in the middle of the high and low extremes — Newport Beach house hunters will continue to buy despite the outside market, Galitski said.

"These people have money in the bank. They've been through it all before," Galitski said. "They're old dogs, and they don't need to be taught any new tricks because they've seen this marketplace before and they're buying homes in an ultra-exclusive market."

Newport seems to essentially be playing catch-up with the rest of Orange County. "Newport Beach didn't experience a lot of the downturn in February, March and April as the rest of the county did," Chapman said.

Costa Mesa seems to follow what agents are expecting to happen in the coming years. Galitski said he expects next year's real estate market to improve.