Los Angeles
Los Angeles
A four-bedroom ranch in West Hills is $439,000. For further information: Trulia
Median home price: $350,000
1-Year change through 2010: 0.2%

Sure, L.A. was a boom town last decade but it was not necessarily a bubble, like Phoenix, Las Vegas and the cities in California's Central Valley. In those places, speculation drove much of the home price increases and the bust has had a devastating impact on the local economies.

The huge Los Angeles metro area, the second largest in the United States, has an extremely diverse economy, which protects it from the cyclical ravages experienced by more one-dimensional cities. The population continues to grow, which ultimately supports prices.

Home prices rose 0.2% in 2010, according to Fiserv, but many sellers are still keeping their asking prices low, hoping for a quick sale. They dropped 8% in March, compared with 12 months earlier, according to Move.com, but appear to have stabilized.

The big positive indicator for the housing market is that, once put on the market, homes, especially well-priced foreclosures, don't sit. They sell in a median of only 79 days, one of the main reasons for Move's positive forecast.

As the foreclosure pipeline dries up and more conventional sales start to claim higher market share, the home price numbers should start to improve as well.


Last updated May 19 2011: 10:02 AM ET
Join the Conversation

8 great places to live that are losing population. More

Homes in these six cities had the steepest price drops of anywhere in the nation during the past six months. Here are a few of the deals you can find. More

Find Homes for sale
  • Property Type
  • Find a home in:
    New York | Atlanta | Chicago | Los Angeles
    Washington D.C | Houston | Philadelphia | More options
Most Popular
 
 
 
 
 

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.