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Los Angeles County's median home price has tied its all-time high of $550,000—a record set in 2007, before the housing market collapsed. The figure is part of a report released by CoreLogic, a real estate analytics firm.
According to the Los Angeles Times, April's 2017 median home price is up six percent from 2016, while median home prices in Orange and San Diego counties have surpassed their previous all-time highs.
“There is a general feeling that prices are too high, [but] there is an urgency," Henry Vega, a real estate broker with Redfin, told the Times, "that if we don’t buy now, we are just not going to be able to buy in the next three or five years unless there is a major crash.”
According to the Associated Press, April saw 20,244 homes and condos sold in L.A. County. That number is down 8.4% from March, and 4.8% from April 2016. The county's housing shortage, coupled with a growing economy and low mortgages rates are fueling the price explosion.
“It all boils down to supply and demand,” Steven Thomas, an analyst with ReportsOnHousing.com, noted in a recent report, according to the Orange County Register. “The lower ranges do not have enough supply, and demand is through the roof. Buyers need to sharpen their pencils and write strong offers to purchase...The opposite is true for the luxury market.”
But Chris Thornberg, a founding partner of Beacon Economics, says that a steady growth of five to six percent (rather than the double-digit growth that happened before the crash) leads him to believe that the current market is stable. “It’s not a bubble,” Thornberg said, according to the Times. “It doesn’t smell like a bubble. It doesn’t walk like a bubble.”
