Los Angeles Real Estate Market 2026: Score 90, New Listings Declining

The Los Angeles real estate market in 2026 presents a paradox that requires data to untangle.

Home values are down 5.77% year over year. Yet PropertyIQ scores Los Angeles a 90 out of 100 as of February 28, 2026, up 18 points from a low of 72 in August 2025. The market has one of the highest scores of any major metro in the country.

How does a market score 90 while posting negative year-over-year price growth? The answer is in what a PropertyIQ score actually measures.

What the 90 Score Measures

The PropertyIQ score reflects supply-demand balance, not price direction. A score of 90 means that current market conditions strongly favor sellers in terms of inventory tightness, sale velocity, and demand relative to supply.

In Los Angeles as of February 2026:

• 14,789 homes are for sale
• 6,621 are pending (under contract)
• Pending ratio: 0.45 - for every 100 active listings, 45 are under contract
• New listings are declining 2.91% year over year
• Days on market: 44
• Sellers receive 99.57% of their asking price

That is a market moving quickly. The negative price growth reflects the correction from the 2021-2022 peak, not current transaction dynamics.

Current Market Conditions

The median listing price in Los Angeles is $1,054,400 as of February 1, 2026. The Zillow median home value is approximately $953,064 as of January 31, 2026.

Home values are down 5.77% year over year as of February 2026, reflecting the tail end of the 2022-2024 correction cycle. Month over month, however, values increased 2.87% from January to February 2026. That monthly acceleration is part of what drove the score from 81 in January to 90 in February.

The five-year home value appreciation in Los Angeles is 8.81% as of February 2026, reflecting both the run-up and the correction.

Inventory and Supply

Los Angeles has 14,789 homes for sale as of February 1, 2026. Inventory is up 9.92% year over year, which would normally signal cooling. But new listings are declining 2.91% year over year, meaning existing supply is not being replenished at the same pace it is being absorbed.

Price per square foot is $661. Price cuts affect 11.77% of listings.

The supply score is 88.63, indicating strong supply-side constraint relative to most markets. Combined with a demand score of 20.07, the overall market dynamics reflect a supply-limited environment rather than a demand surge.

Sale Velocity

Homes in Los Angeles are averaging 44 days on market as of February 2026. Sellers are receiving 99.57% of their asking price as of November 2025.

Home sales are up 2.06% year over year. The market is not surging, but it is moving. New construction sales reached 204 units in November 2025.

The Score Recovery

| Month | Score | |-------|-------| | August 2025 | 72 (low) | | September 2025 | 77 | | October 2025 | 81 | | November 2025 | 80 | | December 2025 | 83 | | January 2026 | 81 | | February 2026 | 90 |

The score dropped to 72 in the summer of 2025 and has climbed 18 points since. The February 2026 reading of 90 is the highest in this recent window and represents a return toward the scores Los Angeles held in early 2024 (84-89 range).

The Affordability Constraint

Los Angeles remains one of the least accessible housing markets in the United States by affordability metrics.

To purchase a median-priced home in the Los Angeles metro, a household needs an estimated income of $280,255 as of February 2026. The metro median household income is $93,525 as of 2023 Census data. That gap has defined the Los Angeles market for decades and has not narrowed.

The market is 188.3% overvalued relative to income fundamentals as of February 2026. Zillow forecasts 1.3% near-term price appreciation as of December 2025.

Rent for houses averages $2,895 per month as of December 2025. The homeownership rate is 48.57%, well below the national average, reflecting the structural affordability barrier.

The Rental Market

With a homeownership rate under 50%, Los Angeles is structurally a renter-majority city. The rent index stands at $2,895 per month for all unit types as of December 2025.

The ratio of rent for houses (51st percentile in relative terms) against median income points to a rental market that is also stretched. The income required to rent comfortably in Los Angeles is approximately $115,807 annually.

Los Angeles Versus California Peers

San Diego scores 94 and San Francisco scores in the high 80s as of February 2026. Both California coastal metros are running similar recovery narratives from summer 2025 lows.

San Diego's advantage over Los Angeles: far tighter inventory (4,133 vs 14,789 active homes), a higher pending ratio (0.56 vs 0.45), and faster home sales growth (+13.5% vs +2.06% YOY).

Los Angeles's scale - 13 million residents, the second-largest metro in the U.S. - means the absolute inventory number of 14,789 represents roughly 0.11% of the population, comparable to San Diego's 4,133 out of 3.3 million (0.13%).

What the Data Says About 2026

Zillow forecasts 1.3% near-term price appreciation in Los Angeles as of December 2025. That is a modest forecast for a market scoring 90, reflecting that the affordability ceiling limits how fast prices can rise even in a supply-constrained environment.

The unemployment rate in Los Angeles is 4.8% as of December 2025, higher than most high-scoring Midwest and Southeast markets. Population is 13,012,469 as of 2023 Census.

A score of 90 in Los Angeles means that if you are a seller, current conditions are strongly in your favor. If you are a buyer, the affordability math has not changed.

PropertyIQ score as of February 28, 2026. Listing and inventory data as of February 1, 2026. Zillow home value data as of January 31, 2026. Sale-to-list data as of November 30, 2025. Forecast data as of December 2025. Census data as of 2023. Economic data as of December 2025. All data for informational purposes only.