Riverside County Real Estate Market: 2024 Year in Review
A fast start turned into a slow finish, as the promise of interest rate relief evaporated
Overview
Like most of the rest of the nation’s residential real estate market, Riverside County had a tough 2024. Sales were quick in the first half of the year, but the descent started with a slow summer season – in May/June/July/August, only July’s sales were up year-over-year. See the chart below.
Zooming out shows the promise that the beginning of the year had. In the chart below, I took the monthly percentage growth sales figures from California Association of Realtors (CAR), set up an index number at 100 at December 2023, and tracked how things unfolded through 2024:
The chart above shows that sales levels accelerated through May of 2024. But things started to tumble in June, and a slight jump in July could not stave off another descent. By December 2024, sales were up year-over-year in Riverside County by 11% and San Bernardino County by just 4%.
Several other statistics show a market with barely any breathing room. For example, also from the CAR, I find that between December 2023 and 2024 prices in the county were up about $19,000 (3.1%) and median days on market increased almost a full week. Fewer sales and higher prices, along with longer time on the market, is not a good combination.
What’s going on here? Nationally, interest rates continue to slow the real estate market down. Even though the Fed cut rates last year starting in September, many other interest rates have not followed suit. Then when inflation showed signs of heating up late in 2024 (and January 2025!), there was no chance for interest rate relief in the broader market. The implied monthly payments were too high for many prospective homebuyers, and the recent L.A. fires, in addition to the summer fires in Riverside and San Bernardino, will make homeowners’ insurance even more unaffordable than it already was. Low housing supply means that the slow sales and high borrowing costs don’t depress prices as much as they should.
If you really need a house right now, it’s just not a good time to buy. Let me know if you have colleagues or others having problems in the real estate market these days.
Riverside County Bright Spots
There are some bright spots. Focusing on zip codes with more than 50 active listings in December 2024, leaving us with over 40 active zip codes, houses were selling fastest in Corona, Hemet, San Jacinto, Menifee, and Moreno Valley. See the table below for top the 10 ranked.
Median listing prices are high in many Eastern Riverside County (Desert) communities such as Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage, and La Quinta, but parts of Temecula and Corona also rank highly on this metric. In particular, parts of Temecula are close to the $1 million mark for median listing price.
Among larger zips, median listing price growth between December 2023 and December 2024 was highest in Temecula, Jurupa Valley, Calimesa, Riverside, Hemet, Menifee, and San Jacinto, giving a sense of which areas are in highest demand. See the table below.
In sum, while Riverside County’s real estate market remains slower than it was a few years ago, some parts of Western Riverside County are bright spots, seeing growth in demand and faster-than-average movement of inventory.