By ELIZABETH HAYES

Staff Reporter

The L.A. area’s jobs-housing balance, while still out of whack, is expected to improve dramatically this year, according to a new report.

While last year nearly 10 jobs were created in Los Angeles County for each new housing permit issued, that ratio is expected to drop to 4.7-to-1 this year.

While the projected drop would represent a dramatic improvement, it’s still not nearly enough to bring L.A. jobs and housing into balance. L.A., in fact, would remain the most unbalanced area in the Western United States.

“Everyone is having problems, but L.A.’s are much more acute,” said John Burns, senior managing director with the Meyers Group, real estate consultants based in Irvine, which prepared the report. “L.A. still has fewer jobs than in 1990, when it was more out of balance than now, but this is going to be a problem that’s going to continue to haunt L.A. for the next 10 years.”

A jobs-housing ratio of between 1.1 and 1.4 is considered balanced, according to the report.

Behind this year’s improved ratio is an anticipated increase in new-housing permits and a dramatic slowing of employment growth. The county added 98,600 new jobs last year, but is expecting only 54,800 this year.

The hottest areas for new-home sales will be the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, with 18.2 percent more new homes projected to be sold there in 1999 compared with last year. West L.A., the South Bay, Antelope Valley and San Gabriel Valley will see new-home sales grow by more than 10 percent.

But many of the jobs being created do not pay enough to support a new-home mortgage, and new homes are not necessarily being built close to employment centers.

“It’s not that you can’t find a home for a high-tech executive, but (they’re tough to find) for entry-level and mid-level workers in areas that are a reasonable commuting distance from jobs,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist with the California Association of Realtors.

The coastal areas which have virtually no available land zoned for high-density, multi-family housing is where the imbalance is most acute, she said.

One positive trend: Job creation is no longer concentrated in a single industry or location, as was the case with the South Bay aerospace industry in years past.

“In the old days, location was a problem because of the massive concentration of employment. Now employment is more dispersed,” said Ehud Mouchly, managing director of the real estate group at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Such a trend is emerging in outlying cities like Calabasas and Santa Clarita, former bedroom communities that are now developing into job centers.

The lack of supply has to do with lack of developable land. Also, the Los Angeles region has emerged from the recession only in the last couple of years, and it takes time for builders to go through the entitlement process.

“L.A. is out of land, and the only places to build are the Santa Clarita Valley and Antelope Valley,” Burns said.

But at least a small measure of improvement is on the horizon. The report projects that 6,042 new homes will be sold in L.A. County this year, 14 percent more than last year. The greatest new-home sales increase in Southern California this year will be in the Inland Empire, where the Meyers Group projects 17,000 new homes will be sold.

Meyers Group divides its new-home sales projections into three categories optimistic, realistic and conservative. Under all three scenarios, L.A. new-home sales are projected to soar in 2000, due to the massive Playa Vista project being built near Marina del Rey, continued growth in the Santa Clarita Valley and new housing demand in the Antelope Valley.

A jobs-housing imbalance does have a certain economic benefit. The higher the jobs-housing ratio, the higher the appreciation on existing homes.

“(Homeowners) get a psychic value in their house appreciating. I think it’s also indicative of a thriving and strong economy,” said Richard Klein, a partner at E & Y; Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group. “You’d much rather have an imbalance in that regard than a situation where you were losing jobs and there were too many houses.”