LA Real Estate Market Update - FEB 2023

According to the most recent sale price statistics taken from the Los Angeles Multiple Listing Service (MLS), home prices have not gone down but have actually inched up a little bit. The biggest change we see is that properties are taking longer to sell. One new advantage for Buyers that we are seeing is that Sellers are not necessarily lowering their prices but are sometimes offering incentives such as as paying for their closing costs or giving them monetary credits to buy down the interest rates. As an example, we recently saw a listing where the Sellers offered to pay half of the HOA dues for the Buyers for their first 5 years of ownership.

Recent stats show an uptick in pending sales, new construction sales, and mortgage activity. A short respite in rising interest rates helped somewhat restart home sales at the end of the year to break a three-month sales decline. December’s uptick in sales shows buyers and sellers are gradually adapting to the new normal and shifting to a more balanced market.

A tight housing inventory has also kept home prices from free falling, with the median price for a single-family home in December slipping 0.4% from November and 2.8% from a year ago.

Will 2023 favor buyers or sellers more in most markets? Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate, says “affordability issues and economic worries will depress home buyer demand, and the inventory of homes available for sale will remain limited. So it’ll continue to be more of a balanced market than tilting one way or the other."

- C.A.R California Association of Realtors / Bankrate / Norada Real Estate