• Existing, single-family home sales totaled 281,050 in March on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, down 1.0 percent from February and down 34.2 percent from March 2022.
  
• March’s statewide median home price was $791,490, up 7.6 percent from February and down 7.0 percent from March 2022.
  
• Year-to-date statewide home sales were down 37.8 percent in March.

Los Angeles, CA – April 18, 2023 (PRNewswire) Moderately higher interest rates held California home sales essentially flat in March, while the statewide median home price recorded a healthy increase on a month-to-month basis for the first time in seven months, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® (C.A.R.) said today.

Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 281,050 in March, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local REALTOR^® associations and MLSs statewide. The statewide annualized sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2023 if sales maintained the March pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.

March’s sales pace was down 1.0 percent on a monthly basis from 284,010 in February and down 34.2 percent from a year ago, when a revised 427,040 homes were sold on an annualized basis. Sales of existing single-family homes in California remained below the 300,000-unit pace for the sixth consecutive month. 

“Despite a dip in March home sales, the competitiveness in the housing market continues to heat up, as homes are selling faster, and the sales-to-list-price ratio is improving, all the while when the number of homes available for sale continues to tighten,” said C.A.R. President Jennifer Branchini, a Bay Area REALTOR^®. “All signs point to a market with solid demand, which should help bolster sales through the homebuying season.”

Infographic: https://www.car.org/Global/Infographics/2023-03-Sales-and-Price

California’s median home price grew for the first time in seven months in March, increasing 7.6 percent from February’s $735,480 to $791,490. March’s price also was lower on a year-over-year basis for the fifth consecutive month, declining 7.0 percent from the revised $851,130 recorded last March. With home prices rising more sharply than the normal seasonal pattern last year, the market could see larger year-over-year price drops as it moves through the spring home-buying season.

“While home sales continue to hover below the 300,000-unit annualized pace, the market seems to have weathered more aggressive rate hikes and banking failures quite well in the last few weeks,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Jordan Levine. “If interest rates stabilize or even improve in the next couple of months, home sales should rise during the spring home-buying season, but tight inventory will prevent a rapid rebound.”

Other key points from C.A.R.’s March 2023 resale housing report include:

• At the regional level, all regions except the Central Valley (-27.7 percent) continued to record annual sales declines of more than 30 percent, with the Far North dropping the most at -38.9 percent. Sales in four of the six counties in the region dipped more than 40 percent from a year ago. The San Francisco Bay Area followed closely behind with a sales decrease of 35.5 percent from a year ago, while Southern California (-33.8 percent) and Central Coast (-31.2 percent) both declined sharply from last March.
  
• All but one of the 51 counties tracked by C.A.R. experienced a sales drop from a year ago in March, with 35 counties dropping more than 30 percent year-over-year and five counties plummeting more than 50 percent from last March. Extreme weather conditions throughout the state in the past few weeks had a negative impact on the housing market, which contributed to sharp sales declines in some of these counties. Plumas (-77.3 percent) had the largest sales drop in March, followed by Mono (-70.6 percent) and Glenn (-52.9 percent). Amador was the only county with an annual sales increase, with a year-over-year gain of 6.4 percent. The market is gaining momentum, however, as it enters the spring homebuying season. All but one county tracked by C.A.R. posted a sales gain on a month-over-month basis, while sales in 23 counties grew more than 50 percent from February.
  
• At the regional level, median home prices dropped from a year ago in all major regions, with prices in three of the five regions declining more than 10 percent year-over-year in March. Home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area continued to drop the most of all regions, even though it was no longer the only region with a double-digit decline. With prices in five counties falling over 10 percent year-over-year, the median price for the Bay Area region was down 12.8 percent from March 2022. The sharp decline is attributable partly to the base effect, as prices surged a year ago when many homebuyers tried to close transactions before rates climbed further. Central Coast (-12.1 percent) and the Far North (-10.1 percent) were the other two regions with a double-digit loss from a year ago, followed by Central Valley (-8.4 percent) and Southern California (-4.0 percent).
  
• More than four out of five counties experienced year-over-year price declines in March, with 18 counties falling more than 10 percent on a year-over-year basis. Santa Barbara (-40.8 percent) had the biggest drop of all counties, followed by Mono (-31.8 percent), and Tehama (-29.5 percent). Six counties registered an increase in their median prices from last March, with all but one county growing less than 10 percent. Glenn had the biggest gain in price of all counties with an increase of 15.6 percent, followed by Kings (9.2 percent) and Humboldt (4.7 percent).
  
• Following its typical seasonal pattern, housing inventory in California dipped on a monthly basis for the second straight month from 3.2 months in February to 2.2 months in March, the lowest level since May 2022. The statewide unsold inventory index (UII) in March 2023, nevertheless, continued to increase from a year ago, jumping 37.5 percent on a year-over-year basis. The surge in UII was due primarily to low housing demand as existing home sales remained below the annualized 300,000 benchmark level.
  
• All price ranges posted an increase in UII from a year ago by 28 percent or more, with the $1 million and up gaining the most (50 percent), followed by the $500,000 – $749,000 price range (25.0 percent), the $750,000 – $999,000 (23.5 percent) and the sub $500,000 (16.7 percent).
  
• With sales remaining 30 percent or more below last year’s level for more than half of the counties in California, active listings continued to surge year-over-year in March. Twenty-one counties recorded a double-digit, year-over-year gain in March as compared to 43 counties in February. Marin registered the largest yearly growth of 52.5 percent, followed by Kings (50.7 percent) and Riverside (46.3 percent). Meanwhile, 20 counties recorded a decline in active listings from a year ago as sales growth outpaced the gain in new active listings in some of these counties. Mono (52.9 percent) had the biggest year-over-year decline in March, followed by Alameda (-45.3 percent) and Contra Costa (-43.2 percent).
  
• Despite the increase in overall active listings in March, housing inventory is much tighter than what the yearly growth suggests. While new active listings added in March improved 27.9 percent on a month-to-month basis from the prior month, the figure also declined 30 percent year-over-year from the same month in 2022. The drop in new active listings, in fact, was the largest dip since May 2020 when the pandemic shutdown took place.
  
• The median number of days it took to sell a California single-family home was 19 days in March and 8 days in March 2022.
  
• C.A.R.’s statewide sales-price-to-list-price ratio* was 99.1 percent in March 2023 and 103.9 percent in March 2022.
  
• The statewide average price per square foot** for an existing single-family home was $388, down from $418 in March a year ago.
  
• The 30-year, fixed-mortgage interest rate averaged 6.54 percent in March, up from 4.17 percent in March 2022, according to Freddie Mac.

Note: The County MLS median price and sales data in the tables are generated from a survey of more than 90 associations of REALTORS^® throughout the state and represent statistics of existing single-family detached homes only. County sales data is not adjusted to account for seasonal factors that can influence home sales. Movements in sales prices should not be interpreted as changes in the cost of a standard home. The median price is where half sold for more and half sold for less; medians are more typical than average prices, which are skewed by a relatively small share of transactions at either the lower end or the upper end. Median prices can be influenced by changes in cost, as well as changes in the characteristics and the size of homes sold. The change in median prices should not be construed as actual price changes in specific homes.

*Sales-to-list-price ratio is an indicator that reflects the negotiation power of home buyers and home sellers under current market conditions. The ratio is calculated by dividing the final sales price of a property by its original list price and is expressed as a percentage. A sales-to-list ratio with 100 percent or above suggests that the property sold for more than the list price, and a ratio below 100 percent indicates that the price sold below the asking price.

**Price per square foot is a measure commonly used by real estate agents and brokers to determine how much a square foot of space a buyer will pay for a property. It is calculated as the sale price of the home divided by the number of finished square feet. C.A.R. currently tracks price-per-square foot statistics for 50 counties.

Leading the way…^® in California real estate for more than 110 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States with more than 200,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.

r = revised

r = revised

SOURCE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.)

Affordability gap for Black and Hispanic/Latino households remains wide

• About one in five of all Californians earned enough income to support the purchase of an $822,320 statewide median-priced home in 2022, down from just over one in four from 2021.
• By ethnic groups, about one-fourth of White California households and a little over one in 10 Black and Hispanic/Latino California households could afford the same median-priced home, while 31 percent of Asians could buy a median-priced home.
• Assuming a 20 percent down payment, a minimum annual income of $186,800 was needed to make monthly payments of $4,670, including principal, interest, and taxes on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at a 5.47 percent interest rate.

Los Angeles, CA – April 5, 2023 (PRNewswire) Housing affordability deteriorated in 2022 for all California ethnic home-buying groups, as home prices soared to record highs last year, and interest rates jumped to levels not seen in more than a decade, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® (C.A.R.) said today.

Twenty-one percent of all Californians earned the minimum income needed to purchase a home in 2022, down from 27 percent in 2021. At the same time, housing affordability for White/non-Hispanic households fell from 32 percent in 2021 to 26 percent in 2022. Twelve percent of Black and Hispanic/Latino households could afford the same median-priced home in 2022, down from 16 percent and 17 percent in 2021, respectively. The significant difference in housing affordability for Black and Hispanic/Latino households illustrates the homeownership gap and wealth disparity for communities of color, which could worsen as the economy slows and rates remain elevated in 2023.

Housing affordability was better for Asians but also declined from the prior year, with the index registering 31 percent of Asian homebuyers who could afford the median-priced home in 2022, down from 38 percent in 2021, according to C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index.

The housing affordability gap between Blacks and the overall population in California improved from 11.7 percentage points in 2021 to 9.8 percentage points in 2022, and the gap for Hispanics/Latinos improved from 10.5 percentage points in 2021 to 9.4 percentage points in 2022.

According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the 2021 homeownership rate for all Californians was 55 percent, 63 percent for Whites, 60 percent for Asians, 44 percent for Hispanics/Latinos and 37 percent for Blacks.

With Black and Latino families having much less wealth than the national average, C.A.R. last year strongly advocated for funding the California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan assistance program, which provides a loan for 20 percent of the home purchase price, in the California 2022-2023 state budget. This program will help bridge down payment and closing cost hurdles that people of color often experience more acutely and allow many working Californians to get on the housing ladder and gain the benefits of homeownership.

Additionally, in an effort to address California’s growing housing affordability crisis and racial homeownership divide, C.A.R. has partnered with nonprofit housing organizations to provide closing cost grants up to $10,000 for eligible first-time home buyers from an underserved community. In 2022, C.A.R. awarded $1 million in closing cost grants through its Housing Affordability Fund’s Closing Cost  Assistance program.

C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index (HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase a median-priced, single-family home in California. C.A.R. also reports affordability indices for regions and select counties within the state. The index is considered the most fundamental measure of housing well-being for home buyers in the state.

A minimum annual income of $186,800 was needed to qualify for the purchase of a $822,320 statewide median-priced, existing single-family home in 2022. The monthly payment, including taxes and insurance on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan, would be $4,670, assuming a 20 percent down payment and an effective composite interest rate of 5.47 percent. The 2022 California median income for Whites was $105,640, $120,040 for Asians, $76,310 for Hispanics/Latinos and $64,190 for Blacks — an income gap of nearly one-third that of the overall population, which was $93,380.

Multimedia: Affordability by Ethnicity Slides

Key points from C.A.R.’s 2022 Housing Affordability by Ethnicity report include:

• Of the major regions for which C.A.R. tracks affordability by ethnicity, the affordability gap between Black and the overall population in 2022 was the largest in Contra Costa, Kern and Santa Clara counties, with each registering a gap of -14 percent. Other counties that had a double-digit affordability gap for Black households include San Francisco (-12 percent), Alameda (-11 percent), San Diego (-11 percent) and Sacramento (-11 percent).
• For Hispanic/Latino households, the affordability gap was the biggest in Santa Clara (-12 percent), Contra Costa (-11 percent), Ventura (-9 percent) and San Diego (-9 percent).
• At an affordability index of 7 percent, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Diego were the least affordable counties for Black households, while Fresno and Riverside were the most affordable counties at 31 percent for the ethnic group.
• The least affordable county in 2022 for Hispanic/Latino homebuyers was Orange County at 8 percent, and the most affordable was Kern at 32 percent.
• For Asian households, Orange County was also the least affordable, with 15 percent earning the minimum income required to buy a median-price home. Kern was the most affordable county with 54 percent of Asian households having the minimum income required to buy a median-priced home.
• San Mateo was the least affordable county for White households, with 14 percent earning the minimum income required to buy a median-price home. Fresno was the most affordable at 48 percent.

Leading the way…^® in California real estate for more than 110 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States with more than 200,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.

SOURCE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.)