Housing tracker: Before the fires, a December slowdown in the Southern California market

The Southern California housing market downshifted last month.

The average home price in the six-county region fell 0.2% from November to $867,042 in December, according to Zillow, marking the fifth consecutive month of declines.

Prices are now 1.5% off their all-time high in July, but some economists say prospective home buyers and sellers shouldn’t expect home values to plunge — one reason behind the shift is the market typically slows in the fall and winter and prices are still above where they were a year ago.

Still, more homes are hitting the market and mortgage interest rates remain high, creating a situation of slightly more supply and slightly less demand.

As a result, annual price growth has slowed. Last month, Southern California home prices were 4.3% higher than a year earlier, compared with a recent peak of 9.5% in April.

Some economists expect price growth to slow further this year but not turn negative, because there’s still not enough supply for everyone that wants to live here.

And that was before the Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed or seriously damaged more than 11,000 homes, suddenly thrusting thousands of additional families into a search for housing.

Explore home prices and rents for December

Use the tables below to search for home sale prices and apartment rental prices by city, neighborhood and county.

Rental prices in Southern California

In the last year, asking rents for apartments in many parts of Southern California have ticked down.

Experts say the trend is driven by a rising number of vacancies, which have forced some landlords to accept less in rent. Vacancies have risen because apartment supply is expanding and demand has fallen as consumers worry about the economy and inflation.

Additionally, the large millennial generation is increasingly aging into homeownership, as the smaller Generation Z enters the apartment market.

Prospective renters shouldn’t get too excited, however. Rent is still extremely high and the fires that broke out in January in L.A. County are expected to put upward pressure on rents, particularly in neighborhoods adjacent to the Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

In December, before the fires, the median rent for vacant units of all sizes across Los Angeles County was $2,045, down 0.7% from a year earlier but 6.8% more than in December 2019, according to data from Apartment List.