Here’s a smidgen of good news for California house hunters: Mild discounting is underway.

My trusty spreadsheet peeked at a Zillow report tracking total home values for the year ending in June and the pandemic era — February 2020 through June 2025. Zillow totaled all of its price estimates for every state and the nation. Mortgage liabilities were not deducted from those valuations.

By this math, California’s total housing value dropped by $106 billion in the past year. Conversely, values across the U.S. rose by $862 billion.

California’s housing market has seen its sales pace drop to a low last seen during the 2008 crash. House hunters shy from near record-high prices. One affordability index shows that only 15% of California households could comfortably buy a typical house. Nationally,

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