California's housing market smashed another record in March. Here’s how much a home costs
The California housing market keeps smashing its own records.
The median price for a single-family home in the Golden State reached a new high of $758,990 in March, according to state figures announced Friday by the Department of Finance.
That's a nearly a 6% bump from the previous record of $717,930 announced in December, and a 24% increase from a year ago.
The jaw-dropping prices are due in part to California's decades-long housing crisis, which has left the state millions of units short of what's needed to stabilize prices.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, owning a home with more space became an attractive luxury for previous renters cramped in urban apartments who suddenly had the liberty to work remotely.
Last month, California recorded 446,000 sales of existing single-family homes, a 19.7% increase from March of 2020.
It's the kind of market Sacramento appraiser Ryan Lundquist said "feels like chaos."
"The housing market is on steroids and it's mind-blowing to see such rapid growth lately," Lundquist wrote in an April 13 blog post.
Lundquist added that he's seen "enormous price increases" in the market.
The four counties in the Sacramento region recorded a median home price of $530,000 in March, a 20% spike since 2020. Southern California home prices have also climbed 15% since last year to an average $619,750.
In recent years, politicians in Sacramento have pushed legislation to increase housing production, including bills to rewrite zoning regulations, streamline the environmental review process and mitigate impact fees that stymie development. Most of those efforts have not passed into law.
Senate Democrats are currently pushing a list of bills that would allow for more duplexes, buildings with up to 10 units and residential development in commercial and retail space. Top Senate Democrats have also introduced a budget plan that would have the state help first-time home buyers make down payments.
The program, the lawmakers said, would help Californians struggling to purchase a home amid a housing shortage that's sparked an affordability crisis.
"Due to a multi-million home shortage, California's housing market is beyond broken," said Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and chair of the Senate Housing Committee. "Even in cities where rents have temporarily dropped, the rents are still sky high. COVID simply spotlighted what we already knew: People need homes, and there aren't nearly enough of them. Until California gets it together and starts to massively build new housing, we'll continue to see these inflated and unsustainable housing costs."
