Why this matters: Real estate agents and brokers representing themselves as experts in their community are better prepared when available data drives decisions in their practice, especially during uncertain times in their local real estate market.
The median is the message
The median price-per-square-foot gave us a mostly plateau performance in 2024. This figure, while leveling off, continued to bump up slightly in Orange County and Santa Clara. Since the May 2022 peak, others have fallen back, namely Riverside, Sacramento and San Francisco.
The month of July 2025, which ended the weakest annual spring buying phase in a decade, saw all seven major counties decrease their price per square foot. California as a whole slid to $507 per square foot, down 4% from the state’s most recent peak at the end of March 2025.
This shift downward during the spring bounce, though quickly resolved, indicates an underlying weakness in pricing based on this stalled price-per-square-footage trend.
Expect home prices to stagger and then decrease as the housing market adjusts to higher mortgage rates among general federal government chaos breeding consumer caution, all of which hinders homebuyer purchasing power and confidence. In turn these factors depress property prices going through 2025.
Price per square foot analysis
The median price per square foot in each of these areas during 2024 was:
- $973 in San Francisco, up 3% from 2023;
- $957 in Santa Clara up 7% from 2023;
- $660 in Orange County, up 9% from 2023;
- $598 in San Diego, up 7% from 2023;
- $594 in Los Angeles, up 5% from 2023;
- $331 in Sacramento, up 3% from 2023; and
- $323 in Riverside, up 5% from 2023.
The bottom price areas largely consist of home sales of low-tier properties (a favorite of speculators and buy-to-let investors). When low-tier property sales are predominant as in 2025, they drag down the average price per square foot should top-tier property sales volume decline — as they are now.
Related article:
Of course, using median price has its drawbacks. Median prices give the appearance of an inaccurate collective increase as prices in all neighborhoods become less extreme among volatile high-tier or low-tier sales volume and pricing. In reality, neither the average price nor the median price represents the direction of market conditions. In contrast, the tiered-pricing approach reflects the willingness of different levels of wealth to buy or sell property, which also sets trends not available with per square foot pricing analysis.
When analyzing a particular property, these charts offer no advice beyond demonstrating localized trends. Pricing a particular home’s value requires agents and homeowners to consider:
- the property’s fair market value (FMV) based on nearby comparable property sales; and
- local end user demand, based on:
- the local job market; and
- local demographics.
Check out the price-per-square-foot history of home sales in these seven California communities.
Posted updated August 29, 2025.
Los Angeles 
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $607 | $614 | $607 |
Orange County
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $678 | $683 | $665 |
Riverside
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $322 | $325 | $324 |
Sacramento
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $328 | $334 | $338 |
San Diego
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $591 | $596 | $604 |
San Francisco
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $964 | $981 | $971 |
Santa Clara
Chart update 8/25/25
| July 2025 | June 2025 | July 2024 | |
| Median Square Foot Price | $965 | $1,002 | $961 |
Data courtesy of Redfin.
These charts are updated annually.
Related article:
Would like to see the venice, ca 90291 area, specially properties around nowita place. Thanks.
PREDICTIONS OFTEN FALL FLAT
We have noticed that so many predictions about the economy and the financial arena by “experts” have fallen flat since the crisis began in 2008. The same may hold true here.
Another possibility, being raised by “fringers” is that the FED will end up owning most of the properties in the United States, thereby becoming the landlord of millions of Americans, as it begins renting them out. It sounds outlandish, but is it?
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
A cyclical occurrence has been boom and bust, PURPOSELY planned, PURPOSELY orchestrated, and PURPOSELY followed to completion. Let us explain. The persons at the top of the food chain in America, in cohorts with the government and FED, PURPOSELY initiate policies of easy money to coerce the common people to buy real property, KNOWING they will eventually lose it, as the top dogs PURPOSELY manipulate the very same financial policies and the economy to make sure they do.
MASSIVE TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY
As millions lose their homes, there then follows a MASSIVE transfer of real property FROM the common people TO the elite. As millions are then reentering the rental market, having lost their homes, the elite then RAISE the rents substantially, and they get away with it due to a short supply of rental units and a now huge demand (which they created).
BANKERS MAKE MONEY NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT
The banking elite made their money on the interest charged from a loan that was created out of thin air at the moment it was made (fractional reserve banking). They then repossess the property and resell it, making money again. They really lost NOTHING, as they really gave nothing, but fabricated money for a loan. All the while this process is grinding on, the FED and the U.S. Congress by backdoor means, is feeding money into the maw of the banks, not to mention outright bailouts. In addition, the banks are receiving .25% on the money in reserves from the government.
SHAMS AND CHARADES
The government then “investigates” the criminal activities of the banks (which are legion), finds guilt here and there, and then levies “huge” (not really) fines in the billions of dollars for public show (as the public now hates the banks and loves when they are “punished”). Where does the money from the fines go? Even fines of $10 billion or more are a pittance to banks, which are handed money by Congress and the FED in much larger sums routinely, not to mention the $30 billion (with a B) they make just in fees per year.
In olden times, in many lands, this same cycle precipitated what little wealth the plebians had BACK into the hands of the patricians. So it has been, and so it is, and so it will be until the current system of inequalities is ended by a more enlightened future populace.
Meanwhile the merciless steps of the super wealthy will continue to be heard in the halls of power, treading down the common man. Historically, this can only last for so long, until finally, the jig is up, the stupefied public awakens, and it forces the elite from power—-temporarily. The elite, being the cunning campers they are, soon worm their way back into power (never having lost it completely), re-mesmerize the plebians, and the cycle begins anew.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Again, as we said, this whole fetid system will finally end when a future, more enlightened populace finally evolves and prevents a recurrence of the cycle, then initiating a truly equitable and sustainable system built on high ethical and moral principles and mutual respect.
great charts, although it’d be ideal to see inflation-adjusted cost psf (the common assumption that real goods adjust for inflation turns out to be far from universally true in RE).
I find your info. valuable. Would like to see Newport beach, San Clemente, San Juan Cap.
with separate charts if you have.
thanks.