Many real estate investors have asked themselves if buying a property in Los Angeles is a good investment? You need to drill deeper into local trends if you want to know what the market holds for real estate investors and buyers in 2021 & 2022.
Los Angeles is a moderately walkable city in Los Angeles County. It is home to around four million people. It is the largest city in California and the second-largest in the United States. Los Angeles Metropolitan Area is a 5- region that includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. The L.A. metropolitan area with over 13 million people rivals New York in population as the largest in the country. However, being a huge real estate market is not reason enough to invest here.
The Los Angeles real estate market is considered one of the premier markets for both investors and homeowners. It is also touted as the nation’s least affordable housing market. If you look in the long-term, it’s always a good investment to buy in Los Angeles. It is said that you will always get your money back or you would make a profit, as Los Angeles has a track record of being a great long-term investment.
According to Neighborhoodscout.com, a real estate data provider, one and two-bedroom large apartment complexes are the most common housing units in Los Angeles. Other types of housing that are prevalent in Los Angeles include single-family detached homes, duplexes, rowhouses, and homes converted to apartments.
Single-family homes account for about 40% of Los Angeles' housing units. In April 2020, the single-family homes posted their biggest percentage gains of the year so far in the Los Angeles metro area. House prices increased by 4.9% in Los Angeles County, 3.7% in Orange County, and 5% in the Inland Empire.
The Los Angeles housing market has been hot for years. In 2018, the home prices in Los Angeles reached record heights, climbing to levels far above those recorded in the years leading up to the Great Recession. If we check historical data, in Los Angeles and Orange counties, year-over-year price increases peaked at 8.2% in April 2018 and have declined every month since. In October 2018, the home prices in Los Angeles and Orange counties rose 5.5% over the previous year, according to the latest available data from the closely watched S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index.
A big factor, according to experts, is that many would-be buyers are increasingly priced out. But real estate agents also say a growing number of people who could buy, like Saavedra, have decided they don’t want to pull the trigger at the top. Home values in Los Angeles are up less than 3 percent since last year. After years of steady escalation, home prices in Los Angeles County are tapering off, according to a new report from CoreLogic.
They find that the Los Angeles county’s median home price was $579,500 in January, down slightly from December’s median price of $581,500. That’s a 2.6 percent increase over the same time last year. By this comparison, prices shot up nearly 8 percent between January 2017 and January 2018. Prices continued to rise through much of 2018 but began to drop heading into Q4 2018. In Q4 2019, home prices were still slightly higher than a year earlier, but the spread has narrowed.
2018’s FRM interest rate increase decreased the principal amount homebuyers can borrow while making the same sustainable mortgage payment. The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index has given the title of least affordable housing market to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale region, only 11.3% of homes sold during the fourth quarter of 2019 were affordable to families earning the area’s median income of $73,100.
The 2020 pandemic had its impact on the market bring down the rent prices while housing prices reached record highs. Los Angeles real estate market isn’t the most affordable in the country, but it’s a market with ample investment opportunity for those who can afford the median price of over 700K.
However, this number doesn't apply to every part of the Los Angeles real estate market. There are some neighborhoods where prices are much cheaper and completion between buyers is much less. The high rate of appreciation has not prevented real estate investors from realizing a great return on investment.
ARTICLE SOURCE
Norada Real Estate
November 17, 2021
By Marco Santarelli