California Legislative Analyst’s Office Issues Mid-Year Housing Report

The California Legislative Analyst’s office has issued a mid-year housing report finding that California home prices continue to exceed those in the rest of the country. The report found that prices for mid-tier homes are more than twice as expensive as the typical mid-tier US home, and that a bottom-tier home in California is now about 30 percent more expensive than a mid-tier home in the rest of the U.S.

The report also found that monthly payments for a newly purchased mid-tier home, including mortgage, taxes, and homeowners’ insurance, fell between April and September 2024 before recovering to a similar level in March 2025. Payments for a mid-tier home were over $5,900 a month in June 2025, a 82 percent increase since January 2020, while payments for a bottom-tier home were over $3,600 per month, an 87 percent increase since January 2020. Also, the gap between the monthly costs of purchasing a bottom-tier home versus renting are near levels that have not been seen since the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. 
​
The full report is available at https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793.