County’s New-Home Sales Plunge 42% for Quarter : * Real estate: New figures indicate the market is sputtering again after a brief recovery. The inventory of unsold houses rose by 15%.

Orange County’s new-home sales plummeted nearly 42% last quarter compared to the preceding three months, strong evidence that the area’s residential real estate market is sputtering again after a brief recovery, according to a survey released Thursday.

“The consumer has withdrawn from the market in all counties of Southern California due to their loss of confidence in the economic recovery,” said Steve Johnson, a partner in the Meyers Group, a Newport Beach real estate information company that issued the housing study.

The third and fourth quarters are traditionally weaker for home sales than the first and second, but Thursday’s report indicated sales were worse than expected.

A total of 1,529 new houses and condominiums were sold in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, down 41.6% from the preceding quarter and off 10.7% from the same quarter in 1990.

The drop in home sales resulted in a slight increase in the supply of available housing, the first such gain in a year. The inventory of homes climbed 15%, to 2,735 units, less than what might be expected with such a steep drop-off in sales, experts said.

“When you have sales fall, normally you would expect a larger increase in inventory,” Johnson said. But “there is less product coming to market due to the conservative attitudes of financial institutions. . . . It’s harder to get construction loans.”

The housing supply was down nearly 25% from the same quarter a year ago, indicating that developers are tailoring their projects more closely to meet demand.

Standing inventory--those houses completed and ready for occupancy--dropped 15.6% last quarter compared to the previous quarter. Finished homes account for only about 30% of the total housing supply available locally.

“That’s a strong sign we’re running out of standing or built houses,” Johnson said.

Meyers Group estimates that there is a 23-week supply of new housing available in the county.

Prices during the third quarter were basically unchanged.

The median price of single-family houses increased 2.8% in the third quarter to $327,000 while the median condominium price remained flat at $184,900.

Johnson predicts a soft market for the rest of the year but says the market should turn up in early 1992.

“I think as the consumer realizes they have survived the economic downturn, they are going to see this is the first time in 14 years that interest rates have been down during a housing downturn, offering them tremendous opportunities to purchase homes,” he said.