Southern California home prices defy ‘brutal year’ for real estate

Although 2023 was real estate’s slowest year in decades, homes somehow held their value.

While Southern California home sales fell to record lows, prices defied expectations and resumed their climb last year.

Housing economist Ralph McLaughlin called 2023 “a year for housing like no other.”

Home prices have “been resilient in 2023 because the Fed has nailed the landing,” said McLaughlin, chief economist for Haus.com. “There wasn’t a recession, and people weren’t forced to sell their houses.”December housing numbers released this week were emblematic of the market malaise buyers, sellers and professionals had been dealing with for the past 12 months.

Home sales fell to 12,012 transactions in the six-county region, housing data firm CoreLogic reported Wednesday, Jan. 31

While buyers saw prices rise soar further out of reach, and homeowners moved only at the peril of facing higher loan rates, those most impacted by 2023’s sales slump “were those professions who rely on transactions,” he said.December housing numbers released this week were emblematic of the market malaise buyers, sellers and professionals had been dealing with for the past 12 months.

Home sales fell to 12,012 transactions in the six-county region, housing data firm CoreLogic reported Wednesday, Jan. 31.That’s Southern California’s smallest tally for a December in records dating back 36 years — and the fifth lowest for any month in that period.

For the year as a whole, just 163,753 Southern California houses, condos and townhomes changed hands in 2023, also the lowest in CoreLogic records dating back to 1988. That’s fewer sales than in 2007 and 2008, when the housing market crashed.

Meanwhile, the median price of a Southern California home — or price at the midpoint of all sales — was $720,000, up 5% from December 2022 levels.

Source: The Orange County Register.