California homebuyers aren’t biting.
Home sales in the Golden State have fallen to a 21-year low.
Cooling mortgage rates at year’s end did little to balance out painfully high sales prices and sky-high contract cancellation rates, the Real Deal reported.
A total of 23,317 existing and new California homes sold in November, according to Attom data cited by the Orange County Register. The lackluster month of sales charted an 8% drop year-over-year — and a 30% dip below average.
A welcome decline in borrowing rates towards the end of 2025 failed to encourage would-be Cali buyers.
Mortgage rates averaged 6.3% in the three months ending in November, the Register reported, citing Freddie Mac data.
Borrowing rates nationwide largely trended downward through 2025, and have continued to fall into 2026.
California’s famously high home prices continue to be an insurmountable barrier for many hopeful homeowners. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the US median sales price rose to $419,300, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In California, November’s median totaled $735,000.
The eye-watering figure hovered just 2% below the California housing market’s $751,000 peak in June 2025.
Sellers are at a disadvantage as well. Home prices rose 9% over the past three years, the Register reported.
Buyer hesitancy remains high, evident in high rates of home-purchase contract cancellations in California metros and beyond. A record 16.3% of all US home sales that went under contract in December were canceled, according to Redfin.
That nationwide figure was dwarfed by cancellations in California metros like Riverside, at 19.2%, and Sacramento, at 19.9%.
San Jose saw the nation’s largest annual increase in cancellations, Redfin reported, followed by Oakland and Sacramento.
