Record Condo Price Cuts Hit Orange County and LA, but September Medians Still Rose, Report Finds

September's Southern California housing numbers read like two different markets in one report. Wire Associates' September 2026 SoCal market report - based on CRMLS closed-sale data and Altos Research active-listing figures - finds prices still holding in the closed-sale data while a record share of sellers are cutting asking prices on the homes that haven't sold.

The headline stat is the price-cut share. As of early October, 43.3% of Orange County condo listings and 37.15% of Los Angeles County condo listings carried a price decrease - the highest readings in the Altos Research data for either market. Orange County houses sat at about 40%, elevated but below the November 2022 peak. The firm is careful to say this is not everywhere and not a crash: the record territory is two condo markets in the two most expensive counties they cover, where "more sellers are cutting than this data has shown before." A price cut is also not automatically a price drop - a seller who started too high and came down to where the market already was has lost nothing.

The rear-view mirror, meanwhile, still looks green. September single-family medians rose year over year in all six counties: Orange at $1,456,000 (up 1.8% on the month, 4.7% on the year, a hair under its May-June peak of $1,470,000), Los Angeles at $1,025,000, San Diego at $1,075,000 (up 7% on the year), Ventura at $950,000, Riverside at $629,000 and San Bernardino at $560,000 - which matched its all-time high. Five of the six remain below their peaks, but none posted a year-over-year decline.

Demand is the weak link. Homes going under contract fell year over year in all six counties in September, from 9.1% in Riverside to 24.7% in Ventura. Los Angeles County put 3,555 homes under contract - sitting just above its September 2023 low of 3,493, against 5,667 in a normal year like 2019. The firm notes that September's closed sales were mostly offers written when rates were lower; "October's data, we predict, will all be in the sevens for mortgage rates."

One bright spot for investors: multifamily is behaving like a different market. San Diego County multifamily was green across the board in September - sales up 18.9%, properties in escrow up 10.4%, new listings up 19.5% from a year earlier.

For South Bay buyers and sellers, the read tracks the local tape: condos are the buyer-leverage segment - remember this summer's record Redondo Beach condo quarter - and the record price-cut share is where sellers have the least room to overprice. Well-priced homes keep moving; everything else is getting repriced in public.

Source: Wire Associates - https://www.wireassociates.com/blog/socal-market-report-september-2026/

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