By Rick Tobin

The California statewide median home price reached an all-time record high of $908,040 in May, which was more than $500,000 higher than the national average price of $407,600. Through June 2024, the median home price average remained above $900,000 for three consecutive months in California.

By the end of the 1st quarter of 2024, California homeowners saw the largest year-over-year equity gain in the nation at $64,000. Los Angeles metropolitan region homeowners had even larger gains while netting closer to $72,000, according to the CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Insights report.

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The CoreLogic analysis showed that homeowners across the nation with mortgages (approximately 62% of all properties) had total equity gains of roughly $1.5 trillion dollars between the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, an annualized percentage gain of +9.6%. Massachusetts had the #2 overall state equity gain at $61,000 and New Jersey was ranked #3 at $59,000.

By comparison, the median national home price hovered between about $430,000 and $445,000 through May and June 2024, according to multiple sources such as Realtor.com. The typical home listing nationwide took 45 days on average to sell, which is still well below the historical average time to sell listed properties.

These massive equity gains each year for most states have dropped the average loan-to-value (LTV) for mortgaged homes nationwide to a record low 48.3% LTV. While other types of consumer debt are currently near all-time record highs for credit cards, student loans, and automobile loans, many American homeowners have never been wealthier.

No matter how fast national home prices are increasing each year, California home prices continue to remain at least twice as high as the national average.

Two Top California Home Regions

There are several booming housing regions across California. Yet, two of the best overall housing markets remain here in Southern California: Orange County and San Diego County.

1. Orange County, California: Through June 2024, Orange County topped a ranking of home-price gains for 30 U.S. cities for the fourth consecutive month, according to data released by First American Title. Orange County price gains grew by +10.2% in 12 months. By comparison, the #2 and #3 national home price gain leaders were in Miami (+8.9%) and Pittsburgh (+6.5%).

The home value trends in Orange County through July 2024 were as follows:

● Median listing home price: $1.3 million
● Median listing home price per square foot: $704/sq. ft.
● Median sold home price: $1.7 million

2. San Diego, California: In May 2024, home prices in San Diego County surpassed $1 million for the first time ever, as per both the San Diego Union-Tribune and CoreLogic. The total overall price increase of more than 9% year-over-year was the largest spike of any of the Top 10 metropolitan regions in the nation.

With most coastal regions in Southern California now averaging well over $1 million dollars for home prices, a larger number of home buyers are looking at inland regions such as those found in Riverside and San Bernardino counties where some homes can be found at prices closer to the much lower national average.

Low Home Sales Volume

In May 2024, there were 4.11 million home sales, according to the National Association of Realtors. During this same time, there were 3.7 months of available home listing inventory, a median sales price gain of +5.8% year-over-year, and the inventory percentage increase was just up +0.6%.

The May 2024 home sales numbers for the nation dropped to one of the three lowest home sales months over the past decade. The slowest home-selling month was back in May 2020 during the pandemic lockdowns and back in October 2023 when mortgage rates were reaching peak highs.

I can’t think of any other time in U.S. history when near record low sales volume happened as home values reached all-time record highs. Generally, lower sales volume tends to lead to falling home prices.

California’s Top 5 Global Economy

By 2018, California had surpassed the United Kingdom as the 5th largest economy in the world, as measured by Gross Domestic Product, if it were listed as a separate nation.

Listed below are the Top 8 largest world economies as of the end of 2023:

1. United States: $27 trillion (including California)
2. China: $17.7 trillion
3. Germany: $4.4 trillion
4. Japan: $4.2 trillion
5. California $3.86 trillion
6. India: $3.7 trillion
7. United Kingdom: $3.3 trillion
8. France: $3.1 trillion
Source: International Monetary Fund

Now, let’s take a closer look at the Top 5 states for largest output in the nation as of 2023:

1. California: $3.86 trillion
2. Texas: $2.6 trillion
3. New York: $2.2 trillion
4. Florida: $1.6 trillion
5. Illinois: $1.1 trillion

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California’s Finite Land Supply

As I’ve shared before in my 2021 article entitled California’s Gold Rush for Valuable Land, there’s a relatively small percentage of available buildable land in the state of California. Values for real estate or other types of consumer goods and services are generally determined by supply and demand. When the demand far exceeds the available supply of an asset or other type of consumer product, the values tend to rise much higher as we’ve seen with California real estate prices.

There are approximately 40 million residents in the Golden State. As of January 2020, the US Census Bureau reported that the U.S. had a population base of 330 million. This translates to California residents representing 12.12% of all U.S. residents.

The famous film and stage actor, writer, and witty humorist from Pacific Palisades, California named Will Rogers once said: “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.”

Another historic quote by Harold Samuel, the founder of Land Securities, which was one of the United Kingdom’s most successful property companies, about the key to success in regard to how to make money in real estate is as follows: “Location, location, location.”

California is filled with an abundant supply of land that is adjacent to the majestic Pacific Ocean and includes scenic rivers, mountain ranges, and forests up and down the state which borders Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon. Our state is 1,040 miles in length and 560 miles in width. There are an estimated 156,000 square miles of land and an additional 7,734 square miles that are covered by water for a grand total size of 164,000 square miles.

If you flew on an airplane between two airports in the state that didn’t fly over the Pacific Ocean, you’d probably see primarily empty land regions. Did you know that our 40 million residents live on approximately just 5.4% of the state’s entire available land supply?

Almost 95% of California has no people living on it due to very strict zoning and usage laws and incredibly high building costs like environmental-impact study and “sustainable living” or green home building fees. The combination of costly environmental-impact fees and rising supply costs are two of the main reasons why there haven’t been many affordable homes or apartments developed in the state.

If we divide 156,000 square miles of available California land supply by the estimated 5.4% of land that’s allowed to have residents living there, this means that only 8,424 square miles of California has residential or commercial real estate and residents on it. If so, this is equal to 4,748 California residents per square mile of the buildable land supply.

Let’s put this 8,424 square miles of buildable land in the Golden State into better perspective by comparing it to other U.S. regions:
● All of the Hawaiian Islands combined: 6,422 square miles
● The Big Island of Hawaii by itself: 4,028 square miles
● The state of Connecticut: 5,543 square miles
● Puerto Rico: 3,515 square miles

California’s Land of Opportunity

For so long as the state’s overall economy remains strong in spite of our massive state deficits, crime, traffic, and lack of affordable housing, we might just see a statewide home price average surpassing $1 million dollars in the near future if our annual home price gains remain at a pace well above our historical average.

Because most of California is not located on a beautiful beach, the fact that many inland properties are also rising to all-time record highs is validation or confirmation that the American Dream is more likely found within California than outside of our state’s borders.

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Rick Tobin

Rick Tobin has worked in the real estate, financial, investment, and writing fields for the past 30+ years. He’s held eight (8) different real estate, securities and mortgage brokerage licenses to date and is a graduate of the University of Southern California. He provides creative residential and commercial mortgage solutions for clients across the nation. He’s also written college textbooks and real estate licensing courses in most states for the two largest real estate publishers in the nation; the oldest real estate school in California; and the first online real estate school in California. Please visit his website at Realloans.com for financing options and his new investment group at So-Cal Real Estate Investors for more details. 

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