It’s a sellers’ market in Southern California and it doesn’t look like that’s changing any time soon.
The latest CoreLogic Home Price Index has been released and Los Angeles house prices increased by more than 8 percent for the third month in a row in May. Orange County house prices, which tend to rise at a slower pace, were up 6.3 percent year over year.
Home prices have been rising steadily in Southern California since 2012 now, as growing employment and an expanding economy have boosted demand, while we’re dealing with a below-average supply of homes for sale.
Supply is very slowly getting better though. According to ReportsOnHousing.com, as of mid-May, listings in the four-county Southern California region were up 7,066 since New Year’s Day — more than triple a rise of 2,071 in the same period in 2017. Still Southern California listings are at their lowest for this time of year since 2013. And, homebuilders have failed to step up their supplies of newly built homes sufficiently.
If you’re on the buying side, you’re probably asking, how long will prices keep rising?
The answer, according to the CoreLogic forecast, is for at least another year, although the pace of price gains will slow. CoreLogic projected U.S. house prices will increase another 5.3 percent by April 2019.