Market Update Los Angeles
Note: You can find the charts & graphs for the Big Story at the end of the following section.
On March 6, 2024, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered remarks before the House Financial Services Committee regarding the Fed’s stance on inflation and the likelihood of rate cuts. In short, rate cuts are coming soon but not too soon. Essentially, the Fed is waiting for more positive inflation data before cutting rates, and cuts will almost certainly come sometime this year. At the start of the year, financial markets were speculating that rate cuts would begin after the Fed’s March meeting, but, with the information from Mr. Powell, we are now expecting rate reductions after the June or July Fed meetings. The Feds strategy makes sense: the benefits of waiting for more information outweigh the potentially negative effects of cutting rates in March only to raise them again in June. The Fed’s dual mandate aims for stable prices (inflation ~2%) and low unemployment. Employment is solid with unemployment at 3.9%, and the February jobs report showed that the labor market added 275,000 non-farm payroll jobs, considerably beating analyst expectations of 200,000. Unless something truly disastrous happens in the labor market, inflation is the primary factor in the Fed’s decision making in the first half of 2024.
The good news for the housing market is that potential home buyers and sellers have a much clearer picture of where rates will go in the next 12 months. The bad news is that rates likely won’t meaningfully decrease until after what is traditionally the most active time in the housing market (March to August). However, because we know there is a high probability of mortgage rates declining this year, home buyers could easily decide to buy now and refinance in the near future. The average 30-year mortgage rate has been above 6% since September 2022, and the housing market has been slower, especially on the selling side, which of course feeds into the buying side, since buyers can’t purchase what's not for sale. The rate-induced market slowdown has given potential buyers more time for a down payment. Many buyers were priced out of the market in the second half of 2022 but have now had over a year to save more money for a down payment. Buyers and sellers are also a little more accustomed to higher rates so aren’t as emotionally tied to the sub-3% mortgage rates seen in 2020 and 2021. We expect the market to heat up more than it did last year because of these factors and aren't so worried about buyer demand because it’s high relative to supply so more sellers could definitely come to the market.
Different regions and individual houses vary from the broad national trends, so we’ve included a Local Lowdown below to provide you with in-depth coverage for your area. In general, higher priced regions (the West and Northeast) have been hit harder by mortgage rate hikes than less expensive markets (the South and Midwest) because of the absolute dollar cost of the rate hikes and limited ability to build new homes. As always, we will continue to monitor the housing and economic markets to best guide you in buying or selling your home.
Note: You can find the charts/graphs for the Local Lowdown at the end of this section.
In Southern California, low inventory and high demand have more than offset the downward price pressure from higher mortgage rates, and prices generally haven’t experienced larger drops due to higher mortgage rates. In fact, in February, new record highs were reached in many Southern California counties. The median single-family home prices in Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties hit record highs, while condo prices reached record highs in Orange and Riverside. Prices almost never peak in the winter months, indicating home prices will likely rise to a new high in almost every month in the first half of the year, at least for single-family homes. Additionally, inventory is so low that rising supply will only increase prices as buyers are better able to find the best match.
High mortgage rates soften both supply and demand, but at this point rates have been above 6% for 15 months, and rate cuts will likely occur sometime this year. Potential buyers have had longer to save for a down payment and will have the opportunity to refinance in the next 12-24 months, which makes current rates less of a limiting factor. However, high demand can only do so much for the market if there isn’t supply to meet it.
Single-family home and condo inventory and new listings fell from January to February 2024. Inventory has trended lower from August 2022 to the present, as far fewer listings have come to the market. Low inventory and new listings, coupled with high mortgage rates, led to a substantial drop in sales and a generally slower housing market. Typically, inventory begins to increase in January or February, peaking in July or August before declining once again from the summer months to the winter. In 2023, inventory patterns didn’t resemble the typical seasonal inventory wave. We were hopeful that inventory and new listings would increase after new listings rose 81% in January 2024. However, new listings declined 13% in February. The number of new listings coming to market is a significant predictor of sales, and the substantial increase in new listings in January led to a 15% increase in sales in February. The demand is there, but supply — especially new supply — hasn’t yet come. The next three months will be critical to our understanding of the market. More supply will mean a healthier market. Year over year, inventory is down 10%, but sales and new listings are up 6% and 5%, respectively.
Months of Supply Inventory (MSI) quantifies the supply/demand relationship by measuring how many months it would take for all current homes listed on the market to sell at the current rate of sales. The long-term average MSI is around three months in California, which indicates a balanced market. An MSI lower than three indicates that there are more buyers than sellers on the market (meaning it’s a sellers’ market), while a higher MSI indicates there are more sellers than buyers (meaning it’s a buyers’ market). MSI fell below three months in the first quarter last year and remained fairly stable from March to August 2023. MSI increased meaningfully from August to November 2023 in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Diego, indicating the market became more balanced for single-family homes. However, MSI trended lower across Southern California from November 2023 to February 2024. Currently, Orange and San Diego counties’ MSIs indicate that those markets favor sellers, while Los Angeles and Riverside counties are more balanced.
We can also use percent of list price received as another indicator for supply and demand. Typically, in a calendar year, sellers receive the lowest percentage of list price during the winter months, when demand is lowest. Winter months tend to have the lowest average sale price (SP) to list price (LP), and the summer months tend to have the highest SP/LP. The January and February 2024 SP/LP was 2% and 3% higher than last year, respectively, meaning we expect sellers overall to receive a higher percentage of the list price throughout all of 2024 than they did in 2023.
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