Two new home price indexes provide further evidence Southern California home prices are softening amid slower sales and rising inventory.
The S&P/CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday, Jan. 29, shows house prices were up 4.4 percent year over year in November in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
That’s the smallest gain since September 2012.
Meanwhile, the separate and more comprehensive CoreLogic Home Price Index released earlier this month showed house prices up 5.2 percent from year-ago levels in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. House prices rose 3.3 percent in Orange County.
Those are the smallest gains in L.A. and Orange counties since the summer of 2012 and the smallest gain in the Inland Empire since the summer of 2015.
Case-Shiller figures show appreciation is falling in the nation as a whole as well. The firm’s National Home Price Index showed U.S. home prices up 5.2 percent in November – the eighth consecutive month of slowing home-price growth.
Some agents maintain rising home prices is positive and 5 percent gains are close to long-term averages for real estate. But experts say lower appreciation shows prices are reacting to reduced home sales and rising interest rates.
Contentious midterm elections and decade-high mortgage rates in October and November contributed to decreased price growth, said Ralph McLaughlin, CoreLogic’s deputy chief economist.
“With the government shutdown failing to put homebuyers at ease, we expect home-price growth to continue to moderate over the next several months,” he said.
The OCRegister
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