From the Orange County Register:

If you want to understand Orange County’s housing slump at its simplest, please note that just one ZIP code of the county’s 83 major ZIPs enjoyed both rising sales and an increased median selling price in the first half of 2011 vs. the year before.

And that ZIP was, according to DataQuick, Newport Beach 92660 — the heart of the waterfront community — where buyers paid a median of $1.1 million in the year’s first six months.

So what’s this neighborhood’s secret sauce?

“It’s status. It’s a name. They want Newport Beach,” says real estate salesperson Andrew Karigan of Karigan Residential, who specializes in the area. He adds that many buyers in the area this year have been from the Middle East paying cash for waterfront mansions. The same neighborhood also has a collection of more affordable homes up the hill from the beach.

“There’s high demand, even in bad markets,” Karigan says. “It’s like Manhattan island, there’s only so much of it. In a downturn, there’s still limited availability.”

In Newport Beach 92660 in 2011′s first six month, 217 homes sold — up 4% from a year ago. Median selling price was up 6% in a year.

(Psst! To read my full analysis of first half homebuying patterns — “No tax break, no housing momentum” — CLICK HERE!)

Compare 92660 to countywide trends for the first half of 2011 – a resaonably long timeframe to look at big trends, especially at the community level:

• 64 of O.C.’s 83 ZIP codes saw declines in their respective median selling price. Overall, buyers’ prices were -1.6% vs. a year ago.
• Taking sales volume in consideration, home-sale pricing is down in ZIPs representing 80% of the Orange County market.
• 6 of 83 O.C. ZIPs with median sales prices above $1 million in the period vs. 11 million-dollar ZIPs when the county median price peaked in June 2007. Since that pricing pinnacle, there’s been a 34% drop in the countywide median price!
• Priciest ZIP? Newport Beach 92661 with a $2,200,000 median selling price.
• Current million-dollar ZIPs were 5% of all sales in the most recent period tracked.
• Cheapest ZIP? Santa Ana 92701 with a $155,000 median selling price.
• There were 3 ZIPs with medians under $250,000 vs. 3 a year ago. ZIPs with medians under a quarter million had 4% of all sales in the most recent period.
• 64 of 83 O.C. ZIPs had year-over-year sales declines in the period — or 77% of the market.
• Overall, countywide sales were down 8.3% vs. a year ago.
• 0 of 83 O.C. ZIPs has sales gains of 100% or more in the period at the same time as 1 had sales drops greater than 50%!
• NOTE! 1 local ZIPs had both sales gains and price gains in the period. (Highlighted in green below!) These double-gainers had combined sales volume equal to 1% of the Orange County market.
• For a detailed report on the price moves, CLICK HERE!

Below is a look at the 83 ZIPs and how they fared in terms of median selling price and total sales for this period.

Also, want to see what kind of housing the median price buys in a specific neighborhood? Click on the ZIP code, and you’ll see current for-sale listings in the median’s “ballpark” — a range from 10% below to 10% above — in that ZIP …

This article and graphs are from the OC Register; the article can be found here: “O.C. Hottest Housing? Easily, Newport Beach 92660.”