Even as the relentless rise in Los Angeles housing costs seems to have paused, condominium sales slowed to a trickle this year.
The number of condo units sold in the first two months slid to a more than 20-year low, according to figures from real estate data firm Attom. The median price of a condo fell nearly 5% in February compared with a year earlier, the property information provider said.
Cooling condo sales may be an early sign of broader weakness in the market.
Stubbornly high home-loan rates, a decline in the construction of new units, and economic angst are all keeping people and property developers from doing more deals, said Richard Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC.
“When the housing market softens, and it has, condos usually go softer faster than single-family homes,” he said. “People prefer single-family houses to condos.”
The median price of a Los Angeles County condo fell 4.5% in February, compared with a year earlier. The median price of a single-family home fell 1.6%.
Median rents in L.A. recently fell to a four-year low, a small sign of hope for tenants who felt like it was only a matter of time before they were priced out of the city.
Condos, like other properties, shot up in value earlier in the pandemic but have been moving sideways in L.A. for the last two years, with the median price meandering around $700,000 for a two-bedroom condominium.
“The market is experiencing more of a pricing plateau than a major correction,” said Rob Barber, chief executive of Attom.
Even as prices have flattened out, fewer deals are getting done.
In January and February, fewer than 2,000 condominiums were sold in Los Angeles County, according to Attom data. That is more than 40% fewer than a recent peak five years ago, and the worst start to the year since 2005, when Attom began collecting the data.
Unlike other big cities such as Miami, New York and Chicago, which are known for abundant condo choices, Los Angeles and other California cities have fewer options, in part because many housing developers steer clear of building them.
Developers say California’s high costs of land and labor, as well as tough government regulations, fees and taxes, have forced them to stop building in the Golden State, even as prices have soared.
L.A.’s weak condo market is part of a larger development problem in which builders increasingly favor rental apartments — or avoid the region altogether.
San Diego is a rare example of a nearby metropolis that has been able to convince more builders to build more.
The city is more welcoming to developers, industry insiders say, with fewer regulations and fees, better planning and less rent control.
In the last quarter of 2025, the number of new apartments under construction in San Diego County rose 10% from three years earlier, CoStar data show. New apartment construction in Los Angeles County tumbled 33% over the same period, hitting an 11-year low in the three months through December. San Diego is expanding its apartment pool at nearly twice the rate of L.A. and other major city clusters in the state.
Condos are particularly tough for builders to invest in because California law allows homeowners associations, or HOAs, to sue developers for construction defects for up to 10 years after a building is completed.
It is common for an HOA to sue the developer as the 10-year statute of limitations nears, often for what developers consider minor or perceived issues. Because of the high litigation risk, the insurance premiums that developers pay for condo projects are often three to five times higher than those for an identical apartment building.
Occupied apartment buildings, meanwhile, are considered stabilized assets. A developer can build them, fill them with renters, and then sell the entire building to an investor, such as a pension fund or a real estate investment trust, for a predictable profit.
“If you sell it, you’re done,” Green said. “The multifamily market has been overwhelmingly a for-rent product for many, many years here in California.”
None of the six Southern California counties from Ventura County to San Diego County tracked by Attom saw median condo prices rise year over year. The biggest drop was 8.6% in Ventura County in February from a year earlier.
“Condo buyers tend to be more rate sensitive and are also dealing with rising HOA fees, insurance costs and stricter financing conditions,” Barber said. “At the same time, condo prices have remained relatively resilient, suggesting demand has cooled but not disappeared altogether.”
HOA fees have been rising with inflation and the upkeep costs of older buildings, making it tougher for consumers to buy condos.
“In California, it’s becoming clearer that they are more expensive to own than people think,” Green said. “We haven’t built much lately. The condominium market is generally older, 40- to 50-year-old places, and they need a lot of work. A lot of capital improvements are coming home to roost.”
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