Housing Tracker: Southern California home values dip in September

Southern California home prices dropped again in September. It’s the fifth consecutive month that values declined from a year earlier.

In September, the average home price across the six-county Southern California region fell 0.4% from August to $860,109, according to data from Zillow. Prices were down 1.8% compared to September 2024.

Economists and real estate agents say a variety of factors has slowed the market, including high mortgage rates, rising inventory and economic uncertainty stemming from tariffs.

Until the recent declines, July 2023 was the last time that year-over-year prices had fallen.

Back then, rising mortgage rates were knocking many buyers out of the market. Values started increasing again when the number of homes for sale plunged as sellers backed away, unwilling to give up mortgages they took out earlier in the pandemic with rates of 3% and lower.

The inventory picture, however, is changing.

In September, there were 23% more homes for sale than a year earlier in Los Angeles County, with similar increases elsewhere in Southern California.

As more homes hit the market, sellers are trimming prices to make listings stand out. Around 23% of listings in L.A. County had a price cut, compared to 20% a year earlier.

Real estate agents say homeowners increasingly want to take the next step in their lives and are deciding to move rather than hold on to their ultra-low mortgage rates. But many first-time buyers, without access to equity, remain locked out.

Add on the economic uncertainty and you get a market that’s noticeably downshifted.

If the Trump administration’s policies end up pushing the economy into a recession, some economists say home prices could drop much further.

For now, Zillow is forecasting that the economy will avoid a recession and home prices will increase a year from now. The real estate firm expects that by September 2026, home prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County metro region will be 1.4% higher than they are now, though that number is lower than the estimated national increase of 1.9%.

Explore home prices and rents for September

Use the tables below to search for home sale prices and apartment rental prices by city, neighborhood and county.

Rental prices in Southern California

Last year asking rents for apartments in many parts of Southern California also ticked down, but the January fires in L.A. County could be upending the downward trend in some locations.

Housing analysts have said that rising vacancy levels since 2022 had forced landlords to accept less in rent. But the fires destroyed thousands of homes, suddenly thrusting many people into the rental market.

Most homes destroyed were single-family houses, and some housing and disaster-recovery experts say they expect the largest rent increases to be in larger units adjacent to burn areas in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, with upward pressure on rents diminishing for units that are smaller and farther away from the disaster zones.

A recent L.A. Times analysis of Zillow data found that in ZIP Codes closest to the fires, rents rose more than in the rest of the county from December to April.

Other data sources show similar trends.

Across Los Angeles, which includes the Palisades as well as many neighborhoods not adjacent to any fire, rents have remained steady year-over-year.

In Santa Monica, which borders the hard-hit Palisades neighborhood, the median rent rose 2% in September from a year earlier, according to data from Apartment List.

Apartment List does not have data for Altadena but it does for the adjacent city of Pasadena. Rents there rose 0.72% in September from a year earlier.