A house on sale at 506B Eastboro Drive Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.
San Diego, California – California’s housing market remains out of reach for most residents, with stark disparities across ethnic groups, according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors (CAR).
Less than 18% of all Californians earned enough income in 2024 to afford the $865,440 median-priced home, down from 19% the previous year, CAR announced Thursday. The affordability divide is even more pronounced when broken down by race: 21% of white households could afford a median-priced home, compared to just 10% of Black households and 9% of Hispanic/Latino families. Meanwhile, 27% of Asian households had sufficient income to buy a median-priced home.
Elevated mortgage rates and rising home prices continued to strain affordability. The typical monthly payment for a median-priced detached home climbed 6% last year compared to 2023, CAR reported.
In San Diego, where the median home price hit $1 million, only 15% of all households could afford a home, with monthly payments averaging $6,390. Here too, racial gaps were evident: 20% of Asian and 17% of white households could afford the median-priced home, compared to just 9% of Hispanic/Latino households and 7% of Black households.
Orange County is the least affordable county for white and Asian households. Just 15% of white households and 14% of Asian households earned enough to afford a median-priced home there.
Los Angeles, one of the state’s largest housing markets, showed similar trends. In 2024, about 21% of white households and 18% of Asian households could afford the $906,030 median-priced home. Among Hispanic/Latino and Black households, affordability rates were significantly lower, at 8% and 7%, respectively.
While the affordability gaps between ethnic groups slightly narrowed last year, they remain wide. The gap between Black households and the overall California population shrank from 8.9% in 2023 to 8% in 2024, while the gap for Hispanic/Latino households narrowed from 9.4% to 8.3%.
Despite projections of slightly lower interest rates in 2025, researchers expect the racial affordability gaps to persist as home prices are forecasted to rise moderately over the next year.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, California’s 2023 homeownership rates also reflected these disparities: 64.4% for white households, 61.5% for Asian households, 45.9% for Hispanic/Latino households, and 36.6% for Black households.
