Home prices in Orange County have started to decline and supply remains tight as owners hang on to favorable mortgages, economists at California State University, Fullerton said in their annual spring forecast.
The economists, led by Woods Center Director Anil Puri and Co-Director Professor Mira Farka, expect the average annual unemployment rate in Orange County to rise to 3.6% this year.
In other key points, the CSUF economists also said:
- Orange County gained 84,000 jobs last year, growing by 5.3%, its largest ever annual increase.
- Payrolls are expected to grow by a “feeble” 0.4% in 2023 and decline by 0.6% in 2024.
- OC home prices soared for two straight years and the median price of a single-family home reached a high of about $1.3 million in May 2022, before starting their decline.
- For Orange County, the average time on the market for a home for sale has jumped from six days in March 2022 to 23 days in February 2023.
