Los Angeles Wildfires: Redfin’s Latest Local Housing Market and Rental Data

Below we’ve outlined Los Angeles housing statistics reflecting the period leading up to the devastating wildfires. We’ll be updating this page with new data and insights as they become available and as the situation evolves.

Redfin agents are working hard to help local homebuyers and sellers navigate disruptions and changes to their transactions. Many Redfin agents are also helping displaced residents find rentals and have offered this service free of charge. For people who have been impacted by the wildfires, Redfin has put together a list of resources, including temporary housing options and insurance information. Our hearts go out to Southern California during this extremely challenging time.

Los Angeles For-Sale Housing Market

Unless otherwise noted, figures in this section represent December 2024 and cover the Los Angeles metropolitan area, which is the second most populous U.S. metro.

• Median home sale price: $905,250, up 6.5% YoY.  Los Angeles is the fourth most expensive metro, by median sale price, among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas.
• Median monthly mortgage payment: $5,970 per month (assuming December’s median sale price, current weekly average mortgage rate, and 20% down payment)
• Affordability: Los Angeles has the least affordable for-sale housing market in the country; someone making the median income would have to spend 78% of their earnings on monthly housing costs to afford the typical home, as of December 2024. That’s the highest share of any major U.S. metro. 
• Active listings (total number of homes for sale): 16,911, up 19.7% YoY. That’s the 10th highest number of active listings among the 50 most populous metros.
• New listings: 2,936, up 11.2% YoY—the sixth largest increase among the 50 most populous metros.
• Pending home sales: 3,695, up 6.6% YoY—the fourth-biggest increase among the major metros Redfin analyzed. 
• Homes sold: 4,130, up 16.3% YoY. Los Angeles had the 9th highest number of home sales among the 50 most populous metros.
• Median days on market: 51, up 9 days YoY.
• Share of homes sold above list price: 39.9%—the 9th highest among the major metros Redfin analyzed. That’s down 2.7 ppts YoY.
• Total value of homes: $2.2 trillion, as of summer 2024. That’s up 6% from a year earlier, and is the second-highest total value of any U.S. metro. 
• Owner-occupied homes (Los Angeles County): 1.6 million as of 2023, per the U.S. Census Bureau. 
• Homeowner tenure: The typical Los Angeles homeowner has spent 19.4 years in their home as of 2024, a longer median tenure than any other major U.S. metro area. That’s much longer than the nationwide average, which is 11.8 years. California homeowners tend to stay put longer than those in other parts of the country largely because they’re incentivized to do so by Proposition 13, which limits property tax increases. 

Los Angeles Rental Market

• December 2024 median asking rent in Los Angeles metro area: $2,780 (-0.4% YoY). That compares with a national median asking rent of $1,594 (-0.3% YoY). Here’s a bedroom breakout for the Los Angeles metro:
  • • 0-1 bedroom median asking rent: $2,483 (0.5% YoY)
    • 2 bedroom median asking rent: $3,170 (0.5% YoY)3+ bedroom median asking rent: $3,899 (1.7% YoY)
• More than half (56%) of Los Angeles households are rent-burdened, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. 
  • The typical Los Angeles renter earns about $38,000 less than they need to afford the median-priced apartment, as of December 2024. 
  • Prior to the fires, asking rents in Los Angeles had been flat for three years.
• More than 95% of apartment units in Los Angeles are occupied, as of December 2024. Los Angeles has an apartment vacancy rate of 4.6%, lower than the national level. 
• There are roughly 1.9 million renter-occupied homes in Los Angeles County as of 2023, per the U.S. Census Bureau. 
• Rents have already started rising and will likely continue to increase as displaced families seek temporary housing and look for permanent housing, according to Redfin agents. Those increases will last as long as it takes to rebuild, which is likely to be two to three years at a minimum. 

Fire Risk and Insurance in Los Angeles 

• There are 565,006 residential properties in Los Angeles County facing high fire risk, representing over one-quarter (28.7%) of properties, according to data from First Street.
• Los Angeles County had a homeowners insurance nonrenewal rate of 1.4% as of 2023. That’s according to a Redfin analysis of data from the Senate Budget Committee, which collected nonrenewal data from 23 insurance companies representing roughly 65% of the U.S. homeowners insurance market. There were 16,925 insurance nonrenewals in Los Angeles County in 2023—the highest number among the 3,098 counties Redfin analyzed.

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