Housing prices dip statewide — but Fresno sees gains. Here’s what is driving the trend

The median selling price of a house in the Fresno market rose slightly in June, tying an all-time high set earlier this year and defying a statewide trend that saw a drop between May and June.

Statewide, the median price – the point of the market at which half of homes sold for more and half for less – dropped by about 4% in June, according to data from the California Association of Realtors. Of the California’s 58 counties, that median price fell in 32 counties, including high-priced Bay Area markets such as San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.

Among counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, Fresno and Tulare counties saw the median selling price increase between May and June. In Fresno County, the median ticked up by about 1.2%, reaching $425,000 to tie the record set in April 2022. That figure is also about 13% higher than it was a year earlier, in June 2021, when the median price was $375,000.

The June 2022 median selling price in Tulare County was $378,000, up from $370,000 in May. That represents an increase of almost 2.2% – enough to rank sixth among California counties for the percentage increase from one month to the next.

Steve Flach, president of the Fresno Association of Realtors, credits two factors for the Fresno market’s gain compared to the statewide decline. “The first is affordability, and the second is how much home and the amount of property you can get for the money” compared to other parts of the state, Flach said. “In the Bay Area and Los Angeles, people pay significantly more than in the Valley” for a house.

In San Francisco, for instance, the median price of a house in June was $1.9 million, more than four times higher than in Fresno County. The median price in Los Angeles County was about $860,000, double the Fresno County figure.

While the median selling price is a frequent benchmark for examining a real estate market, the state Realtors association cautions that movement should not be interpreted as changes in the cost of a standard home.

“Median prices can be influenced by changes in cost, as well as changes in the characteristics and the size of homes sold” in a particular month,” CAR notes in its data. “Due to the low sales volume in some areas, median price changes may exhibit unusual fluctuation.”

Median sale price drops are fairly common this time of year. And the median sales price in the state of $863,790 is up 5.4% since June of last year. However, the month-over-month decline was among the largest going back to the Great Recession, when monthly price drops often hovered around 5% or more, according to CAR’s historical data.

In year-over-year terms, the California increase in median price pales compared to what happened in Fresno County over the course of the year. A 13.3% rise between June 2021 and June 2022 in Fresno County meant the median price was about $50,000 higher than last summer. The $375,000 figure for June 2021 was itself a high-water mark for the local real estate market before being surpassed in 10 of the next 12 months.

Local real estate professionals note that the Fresno market is more tame this year than last summer, when many sellers were receiving multiple offers for their property and frequently fetching more than their asking price. Some of that may be attributed to fears of a recession and rising interest rates on mortgages.

Compared to the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and June 2021, when the median price in Fresno County rose by almost 26%, the local market is settling into a more typical pace of appreciation.

“There is some easing of the market conditions compared to what we saw last year,” said Flach, who is also sales manager for the Fig Garden office of Guarantee Real Estate. “There are not as many offers coming in on properties. Last year we might see 25 offers, now it’s maybe three or four. So there’s not as much upward pressure on price.”

“I think there is a return to normalcy,” he added. “But we’re still short of (housing) inventory. … From June 2021 to June 2022, we went from 0.8 months of inventory to 1.6 months of inventory. Conventional wisdom is that you need three months of inventory, and we’re barely over half of that.”

“So it’s still a seller’s market,” Flach said.

The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.