California’s Housing Market Keeps Growing in 2018

July 2018. As if California isn’t fascinating enough to us all, the housing market here is the talk of the real estate world as well.

Along with becoming the 6th largest economy, California’s housing market has been the best performing of any and that’s music to the ears of investors. Zillow gives it a healthy 8.8 out of 10 and forecasts of 9.3% price growth. California has less owners with negative equity and fewer delinquent mortgages.

Realtor.com rates San Francisco, Sacramento, Vallejo, Stockton, and Santa Cruz as the hottest markets in California.

“We’re seeing interest and money shift away from the overheated markets into less expensive secondary markets…Even if we see some markets overheat and demand softens slightly, that doesn’t mean prices will go down” —  Javier Vivas, director of economic research at realtor.com.

Unfortunately, the talk in California is mostly anxious chatter about affordability, low availability, rising prices, traffic congestion, long commutes, unrequited dreams, fears of crashes, and the frustration of many potential buyers who can’t afford nor even find a place to purchase, or perhaps rent.

From South to Central to North, California homes sales are down. At the same time home prices are way up again, amidst the cries of renters, hopeful millennial buyers, tax payers, homeless workers, and the working house poor, all within a market in severe conflict. Summer is the best time to sell with sellers getting a 5.9% premium on their sales price. Looks like we’ll see more homes on the market.

Not everyone is unhappy though. Sellers are getting near record prices for their homes, at amounts that we associate with big lottery wins.

Greater Los Angeles home prices rose about $16k on average MTM  and $50k YoY and Bay Area home prices rose $62,000 MTM. San Mateo saw the sharpest price drops losing almost 10% MTM. Moterey, Fresno, El Dorado, and Plumas saw the biggest price rises month to month (Car.org stats).

Listings in California rose 7.8% from last year to 52,372 homes for sale currently. There are 9200 listings in Los Angeles, up 1.2% from last year. San Diego has the biggest growth in listings up 14.8% to 5200 listings, San Bernardino up 23% to 3545 listings, and Sacramento is up 24.8% to 2100 listings. 58% of all homes are listed above $500,000.