House prices have hardly risen in Southern California.
According to Zillow, average house prices in April rose 0.4% from March to $884,981. Compared with April 2024, the value rose only 0.7%.
Economists and real estate agents say various factors are covering home prices, including high mortgage rates, rising inventory levels and economic uncertainty arising from tariffs.
Prices grew less than 1% each year, representing a sharp slowdown in the market a year ago. In April 2024, the price rose by 9% compared with April 2023.
If the Trump administration's trade policy plunges the economy into recession, some economists say house prices could fall sharply.
For now, Zillow predicts that the economy has avoided a recession and house prices have only fallen slightly. By April 2026, the real estate company expects house prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area to be 1.5% lower than today.
Kara Ng, a senior economist at Zillow, said the expected small dip can be attributed to the increase in the number of homes for sale.
With mortgage rates still high, real estate agents say existing homeowners are increasingly choosing to move rather than stick to their ultra-low pandemic mortgage rates. Many first-time buyers, who are not entitled to gain benefits, are still locked.
In April, Los Angeles County had 39% more homes than in the same period last year.
"Sellers can come back better than buyers," Ng said.
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Welcome to the Los Angeles Times real estate tracker. We publish a report every month with data on house prices, mortgage rates and rental prices. Our reporters will explain what the new data means for Los Angeles and surrounding areas and help you understand what you expect to pay for an apartment or home. You can read about the property failure last month here.
Use the tables below to search for home sales prices and apartment rentals divided by city, neighborhood and county.
In 2024, rents also ticked down when inquiries to many areas of Southern California, but January fires in Los Angeles County could raise the downward trend in some places.
Housing analysts say the rise in vacancy levels since 2022 has forced landlords to accept less rent. But the fire destroyed thousands of homes and suddenly evicted many people to the rental market.
Most of the destroyed homes are single-family homes, and some housing and disaster recovery experts say they expect the biggest increase in rents to be larger units, adjacent to the burned areas of Pacific Palisade and Altadna, with the upward pressure on rents reduced units that are smaller and far from disaster areas.
Median rents rose 4.5% from the same period last year, according to the apartment list.
Rents rose only 0.1% last month across Los Angeles cities, including Palisades and many neighborhoods without fire.
The apartment list does not have data for Altadena, but for the neighboring Pasadena. Rents there rose by 5.4% in April.