Prices for L.A. Homes Are So High Some People Finally Stopped Buying Them

The median home price in Los Angeles is now officially $600,000, according to real estate listings site Redfin.

Perhaps that's why home sales are slowing down. People with median household incomes ($55,870 a year in L.A. County) can barely afford a home priced at a fraction of that number.

Redfin's April housing report says Los Angeles home prices, 8.1 percent higher than they were at this time last year, are at a six-year high.  

At the same time, the local housing supply has been growing for four months straight and the inventory of properties on the market increased 7 percent compared with April 2015, the site said.

And so, sales fell 8 percent compared with last year.

“Continuously rising prices and few choices for home buyers on the market is ultimately what is causing this drop in home-sales activity,” a Redfin spokesman said. “The biggest contributor to the decline in sales was the Westside, where prices rose 15 percent to $1.22 million.”

Wow.

This week real estate data firm CoreLogic had similar news. It said home sales throughout Southern California were down 3.2 percent compared with April 2015. Home sales in L.A. were down 2.3 percent.

“Southern California's spring home-buying season got off to a lackluster start with total April sales dipping modestly from a year ago, marking only the second month in the past year to log a year-over-year decline in activity,” said Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic research analyst. “Through the first four months of this year, sales are up less than 3 percent from the same period last year and remain below average. Job growth, household growth and low mortgage rates are fueling housing demand, but many would-be homebuyers continue to struggle with inventory, credit and affordability constraints.”

One community that bucked the trend was North Hollywood.

Redfin says the median price in NoHo jumped 14 percent over the last year to $490,000. 

“With so many homes priced below half a million dollars, buyer competition grew, pushing sales up 22 percent” in North Hollywood, Redfin states.

Yes, finding a place for just under half a million bucks constitutes a steal in contemporary Los Angeles.

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