The Hottest Housing Markets In California In 2021

From 2020 to 2021, property purchases in Oxnard, California, surged significantly, resulting in declining available inventory and higher sale prices.
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Since the Covid-19 epidemic hit in early 2020, housing markets across the United States have been on a wild ride. Shutdowns and stay-at-home orders appeared to hamper housing activity at first. However, after a few months of the epidemic, property markets began to recover, and many of them did so with a vengeance. Pent-up demand for housing is now being released across the country, resulting in fewer available homes for sale, shorter days on the market, and higher home prices. Since last year, some towns in California have become particularly hot for home buyers. From May 2020 to May 2021, we studied data from Redfin, including the amount of new listings, pending transactions, available for-sale inventory, and median sale price, to identify which housing areas in California are the hottest. Each city was evaluated and rated based on these data criteria, resulting in a top-five ranking of California’s hottest housing markets in 2021.
Irvine is a city in Orange County, California, located southeast of Los Angeles. It’s a rapidly expanding metropolis, with a population of just under 300,000 people, up from just over 213,000 in 2010. The number of new listings for homes for sale has increased by around 32% year over year, from 273 in May 2020 to 360 in May 2021. Furthermore, pending sales have increased by 236.2 percent over the same time period, from 105 in May 2018 to 353 in May 2021. This hot housing market has, predictably, resulted in a significant reduction in available inventory. Irvine’s inventory has plummeted by little under 50% from 771 homes for sale in May last year, to 393 properties for sale in May 2021. The median sale price in Irvine has increased by more than $100,000 since last May, from $870,000 to $976,000.
The property market in the Bay Area is almost always flooded with high demand and high costs. Fremont, on the other hand, is hotter than most San Francisco Bay Area communities. From $1.025 million in May 2020 to $1.268 million in May 2021, the median sale price in Fremont has increased by nearly $200,000. Between May 2020 and May 2021, the number of new sales listings increased by more than 55 percent, while the number of pending sales more than doubled (136.4 percent). At the same time, available inventory has decreased by roughly 40%, from 208 properties for sale in May of last year to 125 homes by May of 2021.
Oxnard, which is located in Ventura County about 60 miles west of Downtown Los Angeles, is experiencing a lot of activity in the housing market in 2021. Since last year, available inventory has dropped dramatically, with the number of properties for sale virtually halving from 302 in May 2020 to only 156 in May 2021. Over the same time period, the number of pending sales has more than doubled (109.2%), from 65 in May 2020 to 136 in May 2021. Oxnard’s median sale price has also increased significantly, rising 23.1 percent from $519,000 in May 2020 to $639,000 in May 2021.
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Elk Grove is a large suburb outside of Sacramento with a population of about 180,000 people. Elk Grove’s home market has taken off as the housing market has reawakened in the aftermath of the epidemic. Between May 2020 and May 2021, the number of new listings and pending sales climbed by about 25%. At the same time, as a result of the rising demand, available inventory has plummeted: Available inventory has decreased by 62.6 percent from 195 properties for sale in May 2020 to just 73 homes for sale in May 2021. Elk Grove’s median sale price increased by 36.4 percent over the same time period, from $440,000 in May 2018 to $600,000 in May 2021.
Housing in San Jose, the main city in Silicon Valley, has been in great demand for a long time, maybe dating back to the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, the housing market in San Jose has gotten much hotter since last year. From 709 in May 2020 to 1,064 in May 2021, the number of new listings has increased by more than 50%. Over the same time period, the number of pending sales has risen by 118.6%, from 510 in May of last year to 1,115 in May of this year. Meanwhile, available inventory has dropped by roughly 36% between May 2020 and May 2021. The typical sale price grew by just under 24% during the same one-year period, from $1.03 million to $1.275 million.
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