January 2015 marked the 35th consecutive month in which the state’s median sale price has increased on a year-over-year basis. The peak year-over-year price gain during that period was 29.2 percent in July 2013. Since then price gains have trended lower and since July 2014 the year-over-year increases have been single-digit – between about 6 percent and 7 percent from October 2014 through January 2015
The typical monthly mortgage payment for California homebuyers in January 2015 was $1,379, down from $1,457 in December 2014 and down from $1,426 in January 2014. Adjusted for inflation, the January 2015 typical payment was 40.6 percent below the typical payment in the spring of 1989, which was the peak of the prior real estate cycle. It was 51.8 percent below the current cycle’s peak in June 2006 and 49.0 percent above the January 2012 trough of the current cycle.
