Los Angeles County and Inland Empire home prices grew at the fastest pace in three years in March, yet another sign that the local housing market is maintaining its punch for a seventh consecutive year, real estate data firm CoreLogic reported Tuesday.
CoreLogic's Home Price Index shows prices for existing single-family homes in L.A. County jumped 8.8% in the 12 months ending in March, the biggest year-over-year gain since the fall of 2014.
In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, prices were up 8.3% in March, also the biggest gain since late 2014.
Orange County prices were up 6% from the year before, the CoreLogic HPI showed. That's roughly equal to the pace of price gains for the past six months, but well above the March appreciation rates for the previous three years.
The HPI — based on repeat sale comparisons of individual houses — is the third major housing indicator showing strong home price growth during this year's spring home buying season, which kicked off in February.
The California Association of Realtors reported two weeks ago that the median home price in the Los Angeles metro area rose 9% in March. A separate CoreLogic report based showed Southern California's median home price hit an all-time high in that month after rising 8.4%.
The local trend mirrors what's happening in the nation and state as a whole.
The index value of all existing U.S. homes rose 7% in March. In California, prices were up even more dramatically: 8.9%.
"Home prices grew briskly in the first quarter of 2018," said CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft. "High demand and limited supply have pushed home prices above where they were in early 2006. New construction still lags historically normal levels, keeping upward pressure on prices."
While earlier reports show sales lagging year-ago levels — largely due to a shortage of new and existing homes in the marketplace — price gains this year are outpacing the previous three years.
March price gains averaged 6.5% from 2015 through 2017 in Los Angeles County and 5.6% in the Inland Empire — more than 2 percentage points less than this year's increases. March gains averaged 4.6% in Orange County, 1.5 percentage points below this year's increase.
Orange County's percentage gains have lagged L.A. and Inland Empire trends because prices already are the highest in the region.
