In many corners of Southern California, home prices have hit record highs. And they keep going up.
In Los Angeles County, the median price in June jumped 7.4% from a year earlier to $569,000, surpassing the previous record set in May. In Orange County, the median was up 6.1% from 2016 and tied a record reached the previous month at $695,000.
Across the six-county region, the median price — the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less — rose 7.5% from a year earlier and is now just 1% off of its all-time high of $505,000 reached in 2007, according to a report out Tuesday from CoreLogic.
The price increase was even greater than the 7.1% rise recorded in May, and some agents say there are no signs of a slowdown in the Southern California market.
“This time of the year, it usually winds down a little bit after the Fourth of July — I am not seeing that, ” said Hooman Zahedi, a Redfin real estate agent in the San Fernando Valley.
Home prices have now been rising for more than five years, the result of a growing economy, rock-bottom mortgage rates and a shortage of homes on the market.
Those factors have led to a surge in prices nationally as well.
The Case-Shiller index, also released Tuesday, showed prices across the country jumped 5.6% in May from a year earlier. The index lags other price indicators, but is widely considered the most reliable read on home values and offers a more accurate depiction of where the market is headed than the median price.
It does so by comparing the latest sales of detached houses with previous sales and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a sale price over time.
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