So, like, the housing market in Southern California is kinda like, not really moving much, you know? In April, the average home price in the six-county region barely went up by 0.4% from March, landing at a cool $884,981, according to Zillow. Compared to April 2024, prices only went up by 0.7%. Yeah, not really sure why this matters, but economists and real estate agents are saying that a bunch of stuff is keeping home prices from going up more. I mean, there’s high mortgage rates, more houses being put up for sale, and, like, some economic uncertainty because of tariffs and stuff. Annual price growth of less than 1% is a big change from last year when prices were shooting up by 9%. Crazy, right?
Some experts are saying that if the economy goes into a recession because of those trade policies from the Trump administration, home prices could drop by a lot. But Zillow is kinda optimistic, thinking the economy will avoid a recession and that home prices will only go down a bit. By April 2026, they’re predicting that home prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County area will be 1.5% lower than they are now. Kara Ng, a fancy economist at Zillow, says that more homes being put up for sale is one reason prices might dip a bit. With mortgage rates staying high, people who already own homes might be more likely to sell and move instead of keeping those super low pandemic mortgage rates. And, like, first-time buyers who don’t have much money saved up might have a hard time getting into the market.
In April, there were, like, 39% more homes for sale in L.A. County than the year before. “Sellers are coming back more so than buyers,” Ng said. So yeah, looks like the market is changing, but who really knows what’s gonna happen next, right? Moving on to the rental market, in 2024, rents for apartments in Southern California were, like, going down in some places, but then the fires in L.A. County in January kinda messed things up. Vacancy levels have been going up since 2022, which made landlords lower their rents. But then the fires happened, and now lots of people who lost their homes are looking for rentals. Experts are thinking that rents will go up more in bigger units near the burn areas in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, but not as much in smaller units farther away.
In Santa Monica, near the Palisades, median rent went up by 4.5% in April compared to last year. Across all of L.A., rents only went up by 0.1% last month. ApartmentList doesn’t have data for Altadena, but they do for Pasadena, where rents went up by 5.4% in April. So yeah, the rental market is also changing, and there’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s gonna happen next. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like things are kinda up in the air right now.
