The median price for a single-family home in California jumped 6% in October from a year earlier.
The state’s median home price was $605,280, more than double the U.S. median, according to the California Association of Realtors. California home sales rose 1.9% compared with October 2018.
“The latest surge in home prices is the consequence of an ongoing mismatch between supply and demand,” said CAR Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “While low interest rates will reduce borrowing costs for buyers and temporarily alleviate affordability concerns at the micro level, without an increase in housing supply – including new housing construction for sale or rent – fundamental issues remain at the macro level, which will worsen the affordability crisis down the road.”
The supply of homes for sale, measured as the amount of time it would take to sell off existing stock, shrank to three months from 3.6 months in both September 2019 and October 2018.
The cheapest area of the state saw the biggest jump in home prices. The Central Valley, an inland swath that runs about 450 miles from Bakersfield to Redding, had a median price of $345,000 in October, a jump of 7.8% from a year earlier, according to CAR data. Sales rose 7.1% in the same period.
The San Francisco Bay area, the most expensive region, had a median price of $940,000, a drop of 2% from a year ago. Sales rose 1.4% in the same period.
In the Los Angeles metro area, the median price was $545,000, up 5.6% from a year earlier, and sales gained 6.2%.
The Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles, had a median price of $380,000, up 5.8% from a year ago, and sales were up 6%, the CAR report said.
The Central Coast, stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, had a median price of $675,000, up 0.8% from a year earlier, and sales were up 3.9%, CAR said.
