You want $2 million to purchase a house in these California counties


File – Home sale signs are posted along Topanga Canyon road in Los Angeles on Oct. 19, 2023. On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors on reports on existing home sales for October. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
For most Americans, the notion of spending $1 million on a home is simply too far out of reach— not to mention $2 million. In two California counties, however, that’s pretty much what it takes.
Based on the latest sales figures from the California Association of Realtors, median single-family home prices have reached $2 million in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, home to Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area.
San Mateo County, where the median price was $2.15 million in April, surpassed the $2 million mark during the COVID-19 pandemic before falling below it in late 2023. Homes in neighboring Santa Clara County reached a median price of $2 million for the very first time last month, the data shows.
San Francisco City and County and Marin County aren’t too far behind, with median home prices of $1.8 million and $1.7 million, respectively.
In all, 10 California counties are north of $1 million, and with a perpetual housing shortage, experts say there is no reason to expect them to fall significantly in the short or long term.
Jordan Levine, chief economist at the realtor’s association, says shoppers have accepted that historically low mortgage rates of 2% to 3% seen during the COVID-19 pandemic are firmly in the rear-view mirror.
“I think folks are starting to realize that 6% is actually a pretty normal rate by historical standards. Those 3% [rates] were really the outlier, and given that prices continue to rise, I think that’s motivating a lot of buyers to get off the sidelines,” Levine said.
Statewide, the median home price exceeded $900,000 for the first time in April.
California Median Home Prices by County
County | Median Single-Family Home Price (April 2024) |
San Mateo | $2,150,000 |
Santa Clara | $2,000,000 |
San Francisco | $1,800,000 |
Marin | $1,700,000 |
Orange | $1,440,000 |
Santa Cruz | $1,420,000 |
Alameda | $1,401,250 |
Santa Barbara | $1,400,000 |
Mono | $1,077,380 |
San Diego | $1,047,500 |
Monterey | $986,500 |
Napa | $950,000 |
Contra-Costa | $940,000 |
Ventura | $940,000 |
San Luis Obispo | $894,500 |
Sonoma | $850,000 |
Los Angeles | $825,970 |
San Benito | $807,500 |
El Dorado | $757,000 |
Placer | $671,740 |
Riverside | $650,000 |
Yolo | $615,000 |
Nevada | $599,000 |
Solano | $590,000 |
Mendocino | $583,500 |
Mariposa | $549,500 |
Sacramento | $548,580 |
San Joaquin | $540,000 |
San Bernardino | $516,080 |
Calaveras | $493,000 |
Stanislaus | $485,000 |
Madera | $457,500 |
Tuolumne | $452,000 |
Butte | $450,000 |
Del Norte | $445,000 |
Sutter | $428,500 |
Yuba | $427,950 |
Amador | $426,500 |
Fresno | $421,940 |
Humboldt | $400,000 |
Merced | $399,000 |
Tulare | $379,990 |
Kings | $379,000 |
Imperial | $377,500 |
Kern | $377,000 |
Glenn | $362,000 |
Shasta | $360,000 |
Lake | $340,000 |
Plumas | $320,000 |
Tehama | $309,750 |
Siskiyou | $281,500 |
Trinity | $212,000 |
Lassen | $205,000 |
Worth noting: A “median” is a middle value similar to an average, so each county has homes for sale at prices well below and well above the median.