Home Prices Drop In SoCal For The First Time In Months

LOS ANGELES — Home prices in Southern California declined month-over-month in November, marking the first drop in nine months, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report.

The average price for a home in the region was $829,557, a decrease of 0.1 percent compared to October, and Orange County was the only part of the six-county region where values increased, the newspaper reported.

“Lower mortgage rates and cooling home values made a home purchase slightly more affordable in November,” Zillow said in its national market report for November. “Mortgage rates are slowly easing down, but buyers are still constrained by costs.”

In the third quarter of 2023, 11 percent of households in Los Angeles and Orange counties could afford a house at the median price point, according to the Times, while 19 percent could afford one in Riverside County, and 25 percent were able to afford one in San Bernardino County.

Home values increased month-over-month in only two of America’s 50 biggest metro areas: Miami and Las Vegas, according to Zillow. Included on the list of areas with the largest monthly drops was San Francisco at 0.8 percent.

Despite the month-over-month declines, the San Diego region saw one of the highest annual appreciation rates. Year-over-year, home values rose 7.6 percent in the San Diego area, Zillow reported.

Home prices are expected to keep dropping for much of Southern California over the coming year, according to the Times, which reported they are forecast to go down 1.6 percent year-over-year in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, stay flat in San Diego County and rise 0.1 percent across the Inland Empire.

“If inflation continues to cool, we could see more improvement in mortgage rates, … which would alleviate some pressure on both the buy and sell sides of the housing market in 2024,” California Association of Realtors Chief Economist Jordan Levine recently told The Orange County Register.