California home prices and the market signals around them.
Live LA and San Diego Case-Shiller, the statewide HPI, and the signals that move them.
The four signals that move prices.
Supply, demand, affordability, and the broader labor market. National data, monthly cadence. Movements here show up in California-specific prices over the following one to three quarters.
Months of Supply
MSACSR, new homes, US
…
Existing Home Sales
EXHOSLUSM495S, SAAR
…
Affordability Index
NAR Composite, US
…
US Unemployment Rate
UNRATE, monthly
…
What each signal actually tells you.
Cause on the left, effect on the right. Read across all four to see where the market is heading.
Signal 01 · MSACSR
The inventory clock.
Months of inventory at the current sales pace. Under 4 is a seller's market, 4 to 6 is balanced, over 6 starts to favor buyers. When supply stretches past six, listings begin cutting price. When it drops under four, multiple-offer dynamics come back.
Signal 02 · EXHOSLUSM495S
The demand pulse.
Annualized pace of resales closing each month. Healthy is around 5 million, weak is under 4 million, the 2021 peak was 6.5 million. A rising line says buyers are unlocking; a falling line says they're sitting out, and prices follow with a one- to two-quarter lag.
Signal 03 · FIXHAI
The qualify-or-not test.
Compares median family income to the income needed to qualify for the median-priced home with 20% down. 100 is exact match. Above means buyers have surplus; below means deficit. California's standalone read runs far below this national composite, which is why local affordability matters more than the headline.
Signal 04 · UNRATE
The ceiling on demand.
Share of the labor force unemployed and actively looking. Under 4% supports wage growth and qualifying power. Over 5% erodes both. Prices rarely keep climbing through a rising unemployment trend, because the marginal buyer can't qualify when paychecks are at risk.
The three indices that track California housing.
Case-Shiller for the LA and San Diego metros (the two canonical city indices in the state) plus the FHFA's statewide All-Transactions HPI for the broadest read. All three are reported as index values, so the meaningful number is the year-over-year percent change.
LA Metro Home Price Index
Case-Shiller, monthly
…
San Diego Metro Home Price Index
Case-Shiller, monthly
…
California Statewide HPI
FHFA, quarterly
…
Five and ten years, compounded.
CAGR = compound annual growth rate. The headline question for most California homeowners isn't this month, it's what their equity has actually done since they bought. These two columns are that answer for the LA metro, the San Diego metro, and the state as a whole.
| Market | Today | 5y ago | 10y ago | 5y CAGR | 10y CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Metro | … | 333 March 2021 |
246 March 2016 |
5.87% | 6.05% |
| San Diego Metro | … | 320 March 2021 |
222 March 2016 |
6.79% | 7.18% |
| California (statewide) | … | 719 Q1 2021 |
544 Q1 2016 |
6.33% | 6.03% |
Index values are unitless (Case-Shiller normalized to 100 at January 2000; FHFA normalized to 100 at Q1 1991). Read CAGR as the annualized rate at which an index point compounded over that window.
The plain-English read.
Three short explainers on what these indices actually measure and why each one tells a slightly different story.
Explainer 01
Case-Shiller tracks the same homes over time.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index uses a repeat-sales methodology: it follows the same physical homes through multiple transactions and measures how their prices changed. That filters out the mix-shift problem (medians get distorted when expensive homes sell more often, or vice versa). It's the cleanest read on what a typical home in the LA or San Diego metro actually appreciated.
Explainer 02
FHFA tracks the conforming half of the market.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency's All-Transactions HPI is built from mortgages bought or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That means it covers conforming loans (under the federal limit, currently $806,500 in most counties) and misses jumbo, cash, and non-conforming purchases. The trade-off: it's the only index that gives a single number for the entire state, including counties Case-Shiller doesn't cover.
Explainer 03
Supply, demand, affordability, and jobs are the four drivers.
The market signals at the top of the page (months of supply, existing home sales, NAR affordability, US unemployment) are what move the indices over the following one to three quarters. When months of supply stretches above ~6, prices typically soften. When the affordability index climbs past 100, demand returns. The labor market sets the ceiling: prices rarely keep climbing through a rising unemployment trend.
Prices set the ceiling. Rates set the math.
The companion page tracks the 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages, the 10-year Treasury (the leading indicator for both), and the Fed funds rate. Same FRED source, same hourly refresh.
See live mortgage rates →Prices are the trend. Your home is the data point.
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Questions about the numbers on this page.
The Case-Shiller index uses a repeat-sales methodology: it tracks transactions of the same physical homes over time, which filters out mix-shift bias and gives a cleaner read on what a typical home in that metro appreciated. The FHFA All-Transactions HPI is built from transactions on properties whose mortgages were bought or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which means it covers conforming loans (under the federal limit, currently $806,500 in most counties) and includes both purchases and refinances.
Each Case-Shiller metro is its own series with its own base. All metros are normalized to 100 at January 2000. From there, the index level just compounds with that metro's price growth. The absolute number doesn't compare across metros; the year-over-year (or multi-year) percent change does.
There is no single FRED series for California-specific months of supply or existing home sales. The Census Bureau and the National Association of Realtors publish only national aggregates at this cadence. National supply and demand are the leading indicators that California-specific prices follow with a one- to three-quarter lag; for California-specific volumes by county, see the market-insights page.
It's the NAR Housing Affordability Composite Index. 100 = a median-income family has exactly enough income to qualify for a conventional 30-year fixed mortgage on a median-priced existing single-family home with a 20% down payment. Above 100 = surplus. Below 100 = deficit. California's standalone affordability is much lower than the national composite shown here; the national index is the macro signal.
Each card shows its own observation date. The home price indices typically lag two to three months because of how repeat-sales data is collected and revised. The market signals (supply, sales, affordability, unemployment) lag one to two months. The page itself reads from FRED hourly, so a new release surfaces here within about an hour of publication.
All series come from FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's economic data system. FRED is the redistribution layer; the original publishers are S&P CoreLogic and Case-Shiller (the metro home price indices), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (the statewide HPI), the U.S. Census Bureau (months of supply), the National Association of Realtors (existing sales, affordability), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (unemployment). Methodology section below links each one.
Where this data actually comes from.
All seven series are pulled directly from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED is the redistribution layer. The underlying publishers are:
- LXXRSA · SDXRSA. S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, LA and San Diego metros. Monthly, two-month lag, seasonally adjusted.
- CASTHPI. Federal Housing Finance Agency All-Transactions House Price Index for California. Quarterly.
- MSACSR. U.S. Census Bureau Monthly Supply of New Houses. Monthly.
- EXHOSLUSM495S. National Association of Realtors Existing Home Sales, seasonally adjusted annualized rate, thousands of units. Monthly.
- FIXHAI. National Association of Realtors Housing Affordability Composite Index. Monthly (with gaps).
- UNRATE. Bureau of Labor Statistics Civilian Unemployment Rate, seasonally adjusted. Monthly.
The page itself reads FRED via a Cloudflare Pages function and caches the response at the edge for one hour. New FRED observations surface within roughly an hour of publication. CAGR figures in the appreciation table are computed at request time from the latest observation and the corresponding observation 5 or 10 years prior (or as close to those points as the published cadence allows).
Authored and maintained by Joshua Guerrero, Real Estate Agent, Real Brokerage. California DRE #02267255. Reach out at (949) 438-5948 or via /contact/.
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Indices set the trend. Your home sets the strategy.
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