{"id":153798,"date":"2026-01-28T20:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153798\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T20:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:29:07","slug":"has-california-housing-become-a-buyers-market-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153798\/","title":{"rendered":"Has California housing become a buyer\u2019s market? \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Has California housing become a buyer\u2019s market with sellers losing control of pricing?<\/p>\n

My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a relatively new homebuying metric from Redfin<\/a> that attempts to quantify the marketplace mystery: how many house hunters are looking to buy.<\/p>\n

Redfin combines the easily calculated supply number \u2013 homes listed for sale \u2013 with some statistical wizardry to estimate the corresponding number of potential buyers. Gauging demand is the toughest core in almost any industry. Redfin\u2019s calculations seem far better than those from gurus who mistakenly tell you that recent sales equal demand.<\/p>\n

The latest results from December track 50 major U.S. markets \u2013 including eight from California. It\u2019s relatively good news for house hunters.<\/p>\n

By Redfin math, those eight Golden State markets had 35% more sellers \u2013 72,840 vs. 54,045 buyers.<\/p>\n

Redfin calls any market with at least 10% more sellers than buyers a buyer\u2019s market. When there are at least 10% more buyers, that\u2019s a seller\u2019s market. In between is seen as balanced.<\/p>\n

The 44 markets in the rest of the nation leaned even more heavily toward house hunters, with 43% more sellers: 617,753 vs. 433,119 buyers, also a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

Those extra choices should cheer house hunters and worry sellers about added competition.\u00a0Of the 50 U.S. markets tracked, Redfin saw 36 favoring buyers.<\/p>\n

Just five markets favor sellers \u2013 New York\u2019s Nassau County, two from New Jersey (New Brunswick and Newark), Pennsylvania\u2019s Montgomery County, and Milwaukee. Nine got a balanced rating.<\/p>\n

Data debate<\/p>\n

Redfin\u2019s decidedly dour scorecard is controversial among industry gurus who have long defined the buyer\/seller battle with curious calculations largely tied to a sales-to-listings ratio.<\/p>\n

Such math showed that just 11 of 50 major U.S. markets were in a buyer\u2019s market, according to a recent tally by Realtor.com<\/a>. That was an increase from seven.<\/p>\n

And Zillow\u2019s own twist on this debate<\/a> found that only four of 49 U.S. metros favored buyers in its latest report.<\/p>\n

By any measurement, homes are steeply overvalued. To my eye, these old-school buyer\/seller metrics give property owners an incorrect sense of their market clout.<\/p>\n

Sellers\u2019 reluctance to cut their asking prices in an unaffordable housing world is a key reason why sales activity is running near generational lows.<\/p>\n

Split Golden State<\/p>\n

Redfin stats portray California as a split picture, too.<\/p>\n

The four\u00a0Southern California markets had a combined 41% more sellers \u2013 54,869 vs. 39,039 buyers.<\/p>\n

The buyer\u2019s edge was muted in Northern California. It\u2019s four had 20% more sellers \u2013 17,971 vs. 15,006 buyers.<\/p>\n

And when you ponder the eight California markets, only two didn\u2019t favor buyers \u2013 San Francisco and San Jose were balanced.<\/p>\n

The booming artificial intelligence business is giving the Bay Area\u2019s tech industry a major boost, creating more homebuyers in a notoriously tough market.<\/p>\n

Here are the eight Golden State markets, ranked by their buyer-seller gaps \u2026<\/p>\n

Inland Empire: 54% more sellers (17th largest gap of the 50 markets) \u2013 18,583 vs. 12,081 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles County: 46% more sellers (No. 21 of 50) \u2013 21,619 vs. 14,848 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

San Diego: 22% more sellers (No. 32 of 50) \u2013 7,724 vs. 6,351 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

Orange County: 21% more sellers (No. 33 of 50) \u2013 6,943 vs. 5,759 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

Sacramento: 32% more sellers (No. 26 of 50) \u2013 7,345 vs. 5,577 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

Oakland: 28% more sellers (No. 27 of 50) \u2013 5,712 vs. 4,468 buyers \u2013 a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

San Jose: one more seller, yes one (No. 41 of 50) \u2013 2,486 vs. 2,485 buyers \u2013 a balanced market.<\/p>\n

San Francisco: 2% fewer buyers (No. 43 of 50) \u2013 2,428 vs. 2,476 buyers \u2013 a balanced market.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Has California housing become a buyer\u2019s market with sellers losing control of pricing? My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[387,7,9,8,1011,4196,100,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-153798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-housing-data","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}