It's official. Los Angeles home prices have broken previous records.

Yesterday's L.A. Times featured an article with the following headline: Southern California median home price breaks record set last decade during housing bubble.  The headline should link to the article.

My favorite paragraph is the first.  It states, "The Southern California median home price in December finally surpassed bubble-era highs, a milestone that took more than a decade to achieve and is once again raising concerns that housing is too costly." Raising concern? Ya think?

Do I foresee that the bubble will burst? No.  The fundamentals for that to happen now just aren't there.  We no longer have high unemployment, and there's just a lot of money in this state.  Do I think prices will continue to rise?  Perhaps a bit.  But I doubt we'll see the yearly 8%-10% rises we've seen lately.

From today's L.A. Times: L.A.'s hottest zip codes

Today's LAT has published an article called L.A.'s hottest zip codes. It details the areas with the greatest home price appreciation in 2015.  No surprise: both the east side and the beach areas saw the greatest gains.  Also no surprise: a lot of the home sale price appreciation in these areas reflect prices for smaller homes.  Developers are buying these smaller homes at a premium, tearing them down and putting up much larger homes.  Anyway, re the east side, Lincoln Heights and Elysian Valley (which used to be called Frog Town) saw home sale prices rise 14.6% -- and the median price there is still a relatively low $458,500.  (And by the way, if you're looking for a house on the east side, I can help you.)  Of course, Marina Del Rey's and Manhattan Beach's price have much higher median prices.  Toluca Lake/Studio City was listed as well, with a median price appreciation of 3.2%.

LA home prices up 19.6% last year -- but wait, there's more

Alejandro Lazo at L.A. Times has a great article today about year-over-year housing trends in the L.A. area.  Yes, prices were up in December 19.6% compared to December 2011.  Click here for the article, but read past the headlines -- there's some pretty significant info here (the emphasis throughout is mine):

The strong performance last month indicates that 2013 will also continue to bring home price gains, analysts said.

 

The gains came as foreclosures declined, housing inventory plummeted, mortgage interest rates hit record lows and demand from investors spiked.

In California, buyers can anticipate little new inventory on the market. A supply of only about 2 1/2 months' worth of single-family homes for sale was available statewide at the end of December, the California Assn. of Realtors reported Tuesday. A supply of six or seven months is considered healthy by most economists. Cash buyers and investors are also playing a big part in snapping up home inventory. Cash buyers bought up 33.8% of all resale homes last month, while absentee buyers purchased 29.1% of Southland homes in December.

Oh, those pesky cash buyers! But here's my take-away.  Prices aren't coming down any time soon.  The house you want for $700k will cost you $725k by the summer.  So you may want to think about getting in the game now...