The Southern California median home price dipped slightly in March from a year earlier, the first annual decrease since 2012 and a sign of a remarkable downshift from the once-sizzling regional housing market.
The 0.1% drop, reported Friday by CoreLogic, means prices for the six-county region were essentially flat year-over-year. But given a pullback in previous months, prices are $18,500 off their June 2018 peak, and that raises the possibility of a sustained decline in months ahead.The median price for new and resale houses and condos — the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less — was $518,500 in March, compared to an all-time high of $537,000 reached in June 2018.
Many economists say either scenario is unlikely. Today, there is still lots of demand to live in a state where developers can’t easily ramp up construction. Unemployment in California is 4.3%, near a record low and a far cry from a height of 12.3% in the wake of the Great Recession.a crash“What we are going through is a market adjustment,” said Skylar Olsen, director of economic research with Zillow. “Home prices were outpacing incomes at an unsustainable rate.
Open houses have also been increasingly busy as the opening of the traditional spring buying season coincides with declining mortgage rates, some agents said. Any upsurge in demand wouldn’t fully be captured by March data. The latest data show home inventory — the supply of property offered for sale — is rising. According to Zillow, there were 24% more homes for sale in L.A. County last month than in March 2018. In Orange County, listings rose 40%.
In L.A. County, the softening of the market may partly stem from people outright leaving the area, or refusing to move here given high costs. According to the latest census estimates, L.A. County’s population declined by 13,000 in the year ended July 2018.
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