The Orange County Market,
Beyond the Headlines
The county-wide view — every city, every price band, straight from the MLS. This is the backdrop against which your own neighborhood's numbers actually mean something.
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Five thousand choices, and buyers are choosing carefully
Orange County closed just over 1,700 home sales in the past thirty days at a median of about $1.21 million, while active inventory held just shy of five thousand homes. That is 2.9 months of supply — a market with real selection for the first time in years, but still short of balanced. The median sale went under contract in 21 days; the median home still sitting has been listed 44 days. Same county, two very different experiences, and the difference is almost always price.
One email a month on what actually closed, what sat, and what it means for the decision in front of you. No listing dumps, no pressure.
The numbers, for those who want depth
| Metric | Orange County · 30 days through Aug 31 |
|---|---|
| Homes for sale (active) | 4,964 |
| Closed sales (30 days) | 1,712 |
| Median sold price | $1,210,000 |
| Median asking price (actives) | $1,294,900 |
| Median price per sq ft (sold) | $681 |
| Median days to sell (closed) | 21 |
| Median days on market (current listings) | 44 |
| Under contract — offer accepted, not yet closed | 1,891 |
| Coming soon (in the pipeline) | 135 |
| Newly listed, still active (30 days) | 1,536 |
| Months of supply | ~2.9 |
| Top sale (30 days) | $38,900,000 |
Source: CRMLS residential data, county-wide, pulled August 31, 2026 for the trailing 30 days. Medians shown. Single-family homes accounted for 1,085 of the 1,712 closings, with condos, townhomes, and other residential types making up the balance. Fifty MLS city areas are represented. Months of supply is how long today's inventory would take to sell at the current sales pace; under about four months generally favors sellers. This page is rebuilt each month on fresh data.
The pipeline says the pace holds: 1,891 homes were under contract at the snapshot — more than a full month of closings already in escrow — with another 135 staged as coming soon — and if you'd rather have that pipeline watched for you, I send early alerts when a coming-soon home matches your criteria. Meanwhile more than 1,500 of the homes listed in the past thirty days were still available at month-end — fresh supply arriving as fast as the market clears it, which is how selection keeps building without anything dramatic happening. Rates near 6.66% are doing neither side any favors.
The snapshot above tells you what happened this month. This section tells you what usually happens, month by month, across the whole county, using Zillow Research's published monthly data averaged over three full years. It is the part of the page that does not change with the headline, and it is the part most people are actually asking about when they search for the best time to sell or buy here.
The single clearest way to see seasonality is the share of homes that sell for more than they were listed at. In Orange County it climbs from the low thirties in winter to the mid forties by late spring, then slides back through the fall.
Share of Orange County homes that closed above their list price, three-year average by month of closing. Source: Zillow Research. Darkest bar is the seasonal high; the outlined bar is the low.
| The question | The month | What the data shows |
|---|---|---|
| Best month to sell for top dollar | June closings | Median price runs about 7 to 8% above the January trough. Sale-to-list peaks a month earlier, in May, at roughly half a percent over asking. |
| Best month to buy with the least competition | December and January | Roughly one in three homes closes above list, the lowest of the year. Showings and offers thin out with the holidays. |
| Best month for a buyer to negotiate | December | The average home closes about two thirds of a percent under its final list price, the widest gap of the year. November and January are close behind. |
| Best month to list for the fastest sale | Late March | April pendings take about 13 days at the median, the year's fastest. December pendings take roughly twice as long. |
| Most price cuts on the market | September and October | Nearly one in four active listings has taken a price reduction, up from about one in seven in February. Aging spring inventory is where the negotiating room lives. |
| Most new listings | June | New listings run about 80% higher in June than in January. Inventory peaks a month later, in July, at roughly 1.5 times the February low. |
Most of what people call a hot or cold market in Orange County is just the calendar. Spring is a seller's window and the holidays are a buyer's window, and the same house can attract three offers in May and one in December without anything about the house changing. That is worth knowing before you read any single month's numbers as a trend.
Over the past three years the whole calendar has shifted in the buyer's direction. Inventory has grown, the share of homes selling above asking has fallen from roughly half to roughly a third, and the typical sale now takes about a week longer to go under contract than it did. The seasonal shape is the same. The peaks are just lower and the troughs are deeper, which is another way of saying pricing discipline matters more than it did.
For coastal owners planning a Proposition 19 move, the timing question is really two questions: when to sell the coastal home and when to buy the replacement. The county calendar says the same spring window that gets you the best price on the sale is also the most competitive time to buy. Some of my clients sell in spring and buy in the fall; others reverse it. Which order fits depends on the two-year Prop 19 window and on the carry cost in between.
Want the calendar applied to your own street and price band? Request a private home value review, or read how a Proposition 19 move is timed.
Because the years before them do not describe a normal calendar. Between February 2020 and the end of 2023, Zillow's home value index for Orange County rose about 47% after two nearly flat years, mortgage rates went from under three percent to over seven, and in the spring of 2022 77% of homes here closed above their asking price with the typical sale going under contract in about 8 days. Fold those months into a seasonal average and every spring reads like a frenzy and every winter like a collapse. Neither describes the market you are in now.
The averages on this page start in January 2024, the first year after that window, and gain a year each time a normal one is added. The full series from 2018 onward, with every chart, is here for anyone who wants to check the reasoning.
What is the best month to sell a house in Orange County?
Based on three years of Zillow Research data averaged by month, Orange County sellers see the strongest results with June closings, when median sale prices peak, and May contracts, when the share of homes selling above list and the sale-to-list ratio are both at their annual high. To close in June, list in the second half of April. Current-month figures on this page come from CRMLS.
What is the best month to buy a house in Orange County?
December and January. Zillow Research data shows the lowest share of homes selling above asking in those months, about one in three compared with nearly half in May, and the average sale closes a little more than half a percent under list. There is less to choose from, but competition is at its thinnest.
How long does it take to sell a house in Orange County?
It depends heavily on the month. Zillow's median days to pending for Orange County averages about two weeks for homes that go under contract in April and about three and a half weeks for December. Over the past three years the typical time to contract has lengthened by roughly a week across all seasons.
Do homes in Orange County sell above asking price?
In the spring, close to half of them do. In winter, closer to a third. Averaged across the year, the typical Orange County home closes within about half a percent of its list price, slightly above in spring and slightly below in winter, according to Zillow Research's sale-to-list series.
Is Orange County a buyer's market or a seller's market?
By months of supply, the county as a whole still leans toward sellers, but the balance has moved. Inventory is higher than it was three years ago, fewer homes sell above asking, and price reductions are more common. The current month's supply figure is in the CRMLS table on this page; the seasonal pattern above tells you which direction the next few months usually push it.
Seasonal figures on this section are three-year averages by calendar month, calculated from Zillow Research's published monthly series for Orange County, California (county series): median sale price, mean sale-to-list ratio, share of homes sold above list price, median days to pending, share of active listings with a price cut, new listings, and active inventory. Zillow's monthly series are smoothed three-month averages, which is why they are used here for pattern rather than for any single month's headline. You can chart the same series yourself in Zillow's Market Explorer.
Averaging window: January 2024 through June 2026. The section is refreshed once a year when a full new calendar year of Zillow data is available; the monthly snapshot elsewhere on this page comes from CRMLS and is rebuilt every month. Zillow is an independent source and is not affiliated with Jade Larney or Anvil Real Estate.
What the numbers actually say
The county's center of gravity is the $1M–$2M band: 786 of the past month's 1,712 sales closed there, on 2.4 months of supply — the tightest band in the county. Below a million, supply is thicker and buyers negotiate harder. Above $2 million, the market slows in stages: 3.2 months of supply from $2–3M, 4.5 from $3–5M, and more than seven months above $5 million. The higher you go, the more patience and pricing discipline decide the outcome.
For coastal owners, that gradient is the strategy. The county-wide market your buyers are coming from is faster and tighter than the luxury tier you may be selling in — which is why the same week can be the right time to sell a $1.6M Costa Mesa home and a demanding time to sell an $8M one. Plan for the market you are actually in.
Want this read for your street and price band? Request a private home value review →
One county, five markets
| Price band | For sale | Sold (30 days) | Months of supply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | 1,813 | 624 | 2.9 |
| $1M – $2M | 1,848 | 786 | 2.4 |
| $2M – $3M | 528 | 165 | 3.2 |
| $3M – $5M | 381 | 85 | 4.5 |
| $5M and up | 394 | 52 | 7.6 |
The tightest market in Orange County is the $1M–$2M band — nearly half of all sales on the thinnest relative supply. Balanced conditions are conventionally four to six months; only the county's luxury tiers are there.
Browse the county's live MLS feed by band, right here on jadelarney.com: Under $1M · $1M–$2M · $2M–$3M · $3M–$5M · $5M and up. Tap Save Search on any of them and you'll know the day something new hits the market.
The ten busiest cities
Closed sales over the past thirty days, by MLS city area, with each city's own median — a reminder of how wide this county's range really is.
| City | Closed (30 days) | Median sold price |
|---|---|---|
| Irvine | 170 | $1,412,500 |
| Huntington Beach | 117 | $1,450,000 |
| Mission Viejo | 93 | $1,250,000 |
| Anaheim | 86 | $940,000 |
| Fullerton | 73 | $999,990 |
| Orange | 68 | $1,128,000 |
| Santa Ana | 67 | $797,000 |
| Yorba Linda | 64 | $1,425,000 |
| San Clemente | 60 | $1,679,500 |
| Lake Forest | 53 | $1,220,000 |
For the coastal cities I track house-by-house — Newport Beach, Corona del Mar, Newport Coast, and Costa Mesa — see the dedicated updates on the market update hub. Each city name above opens that city's live listings here on jadelarney.com.
What this means for you
"Is county-wide inventory finally giving buyers a break?"
Selection, yes — five thousand active listings is real choice. Leverage depends on your band: at $1M–$2M you are still competing on 2.4 months of supply, while above $2 million there is more room to negotiate, especially on listings aging past the 44-day median.
The signal to watchMonths of supply in your price band, not the county headline.
Buyer strategy →"Does a county this size tell me anything about my street?"
It tells you the backdrop: steady demand, growing selection, no rate relief. What it cannot tell you is your street's last three comparables, which is what your price will be built on. Use the county for direction, your neighborhood data for the decision.
The signal to watchYour city's median versus the county's — the gap tells you more than either number alone.
Seller strategy →"I'm 55+, selling coastal, and the county is my search map."
This is where the county view earns its place on this page. A Proposition 19 base transfer works anywhere in California, and for many of my Newport-area clients the right-size home is an Orange County move: Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente. Selling at a coastal median and buying at a county median — at equal or lesser value — is precisely the kind of move Proposition 19 contemplates. General education, not tax or legal advice — we plan this with your CPA or attorney.
The signal to watchThe two-year window between sale and purchase. It closes faster than people expect.
The Prop 19 downsizing plan →Every Orange County closing, examined
Most market reports publish a median and stop. Below is the whole distribution behind it: 1,712 closed sales across 50 Orange County MLS city areas in the 30 days through August 31, broken out by price, property type, days on market, city, and age of the housing stock. Every figure is computed from the raw CRMLS export, and the method is documented at the bottom so you can reproduce it.
Median home sold: 1,707 square feet, built 1977, three bedrooms.
Which Orange County price band is actually moving?
Two independent measures of speed, and they agree. Months of supply compares standing inventory to the sales pace. Median days on market measures how long the homes that sold actually took. Both say the same thing: the county is tight in the middle and slow at the top.
| Price band | For sale | Closings | Share | Median price | Median days | Months supply | Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | 1,813 | 624 | 36.4% | $740,000 | 24 | 2.9 | Seller |
| $1M to $2M | 1,848 | 786 | 45.9% | $1,350,000 | 17 | 2.4 | Seller |
| $2M to $3M | 528 | 165 | 9.6% | $2,380,000 | 22 | 3.2 | Seller |
| $3M to $5M | 381 | 85 | 5.0% | $3,692,822 | 28 | 4.5 | Balanced |
| $5M and up | 394 | 52 | 3.0% | $7,925,000 | 63 | 7.6 | Buyer |
Months of supply under 4 favors sellers, 4 to 6 is balanced, above 6 favors buyers. Active listings divided by the 30-day sales pace. The price band section higher on this page carries live MLS links if you would rather browse what is actually available in each range.
Your price band is one row in that table. Where your own home sits inside it is the difference between a three-week sale and a three-month one. Get a read on your specific home →
How long did homes actually take to sell?
The median of 21 days hides a market splitting in two. Just over a quarter of everything that closed did so within a week. Another 12% took more than three months.
| Days on market | Closings | Share | Cumulative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 7 days | 464 | 27.1% | 27.1% | |
| 8 to 14 days | 251 | 14.7% | 41.8% | |
| 15 to 30 days | 292 | 17.1% | 58.9% | |
| 31 to 60 days | 338 | 19.7% | 78.6% | |
| 61 to 90 days | 162 | 9.5% | 88.0% | |
| 91 days or more | 205 | 12.0% | 100% |
How old is that listing, really?
Every listing carries two clocks. One counts days on the current listing. The other counts every day the property has spent on the market across all of its listing periods. Portals show you the first one. The second one lives in the MLS, and in August the two told very different stories about 115 Orange County homes.
Of the 1,712 homes that closed in August, 115 sold with a market history their days-on-market number did not show. Those homes displayed a median of 26 days. They had actually been on the market a median of 92 days. The longest carried 421 hidden days.
| Price band | Closings | With prior history | Share | Days shown | Days actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | 624 | 33 | 5.3% | 30 | 83 |
| $1M to $2M | 786 | 51 | 6.5% | 14 | 89 |
| $2M to $3M | 165 | 9 | 5.5% | 37 | 118 |
| $3M to $5M | 85 | 12 | 14.1% | 32 | 151 |
| $5M and above | 52 | 10 | 19.2% | 58 | 198 |
| All price bands | 1,712 | 115 | 6.7% | 26 | 92 |
A prior listing period means the property was on the market before under a separate listing. It can follow an expired or withdrawn listing, an escrow that fell apart, or a change of agent.
The pattern is not evenly spread. Below $3 million it runs near 6 percent. Above $3 million it roughly triples, and above $5 million nearly one sale in five carried a prior listing period. In that top band the typical home showed 58 days and had actually been trying to sell for 198.
What this means if you are buying. A listing showing three weeks on the market may have been trying for four months. That difference is the whole negotiation. Before you write, ask your agent for the cumulative days on market, not the number on the portal.
What this means if you are selling. Relisting resets the number a buyer sees. It does not reset what a buyer's agent can look up. The homes in this group did eventually sell, but they spent a median of 92 days getting there. Pricing correctly the first time remains the shortest path.
Do attached and detached homes sell differently?
| Type | Closings | Share | Median price | Median $/sq ft | Median days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | 1,085 | 63.4% | $1,455,000 | $728 | 19 |
| Attached | 626 | 36.6% | $760,000 | $607 | 27 |
One closing carried no structure-type code and is excluded from this table.
Which Orange County cities sold the most homes?
The ten busiest cities produced half of all county closings. The attached share varies enormously by city, from 20% in Mission Viejo to 49% in Santa Ana.
| City | Closings | Detached | Attached | Attached share | Median price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Irvine | 170 | 97 | 73 | 42.9% | $1,412,500 | |
| Huntington Beach | 117 | 76 | 41 | 35.0% | $1,450,000 | |
| Mission Viejo | 93 | 74 | 19 | 20.4% | $1,250,000 | |
| Anaheim | 86 | 51 | 35 | 40.7% | $940,000 | |
| Fullerton | 73 | 49 | 24 | 32.9% | $999,990 | |
| Orange | 68 | 48 | 20 | 29.4% | $1,128,000 | |
| Santa Ana | 67 | 34 | 33 | 49.3% | $797,000 | |
| Yorba Linda | 64 | 49 | 15 | 23.4% | $1,425,000 | |
| San Clemente | 60 | 43 | 17 | 28.3% | $1,679,500 | |
| Lake Forest | 53 | 35 | 18 | 34.0% | $1,220,000 | |
| Costa Mesa | 52 | 34 | 18 | 34.6% | $1,513,500 | |
| Newport Beach | 46 | 24 | 22 | 47.8% | $3,190,000 | |
| Corona del Mar | 19 | 13 | 6 | 31.6% | $5,100,000 | |
| Newport Coast | 7 | 5 | 2 | 28.6% | $4,450,000 |
Detached Attached. Bars are scaled to Irvine at 170 closings.
What kinds of homes are selling in Orange County?
| Sub-type | Closings | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single family, detached | 1,011 | 59.1% | |
| Condominium, attached | 364 | 21.3% | |
| Townhome, attached | 117 | 6.8% | |
| Single family, attached | 94 | 5.5% | |
| Condominium, detached | 52 | 3.0% | |
| Co-operative, attached | 47 | 2.7% | |
| Duplex, triplex and other | 27 | 1.6% |
How old are the homes selling in Orange County?
Orange County trades an aging housing stock. The median home that closed was built in 1977, and only 11% of sales were homes built since 2010. Anyone underwriting a purchase here is underwriting a roof, a panel, and a sewer lateral of a certain vintage.
| Decade built | Closings | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1950 | 46 | 2.7% | |
| 1950s | 154 | 9.0% | |
| 1960s | 338 | 19.8% | |
| 1970s | 401 | 23.4% | |
| 1980s | 266 | 15.5% | |
| 1990s | 185 | 10.8% | |
| 2000s | 126 | 7.4% | |
| 2010s | 90 | 5.3% | |
| 2020s | 105 | 6.1% |
How many bedrooms did buyers actually buy?
| Bedrooms | Closings | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | 61 | 3.6% | |
| Two | 366 | 21.4% | |
| Three | 584 | 34.1% | |
| Four | 507 | 29.6% | |
| Five | 166 | 9.7% | |
| Six or more | 25 | 1.5% |
What do these numbers actually mean?
Months of supply. How long it would take to sell every home currently for sale, at the pace homes are actually selling. Under four months favors sellers. Four to six months is balanced. Above six favors buyers.
Median, not average. The median is the middle sale: half sold for more, half for less. An average is pulled upward by a handful of very expensive sales, which is why published Orange County figures can differ by tens of thousands of dollars depending on which one a source used.
Days on market. The days between a home coming to market and going under contract. The figure used on this page is cumulative, meaning it carries forward if a property was relisted. The non-cumulative version produces a county median of 19 days rather than 21.
Attached and detached. Detached means a standalone house. Attached means it shares at least one wall: condominiums, townhomes, co-operatives, and attached single-family homes.
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DAYS ON MARKET Days on market is the cumulative figure, which carries forward across relisting of the same property. It is the more conservative of the two measures the MLS reports and it is the one used throughout this page. The non-cumulative figure produces a county median of 19 days rather than 21.
DEFINITIONS Attached covers condominiums, townhomes, co-operatives and attached single-family homes. Detached covers detached single-family, detached condominiums, and detached multi-unit structures. Months of supply is active listings divided by the trailing 30-day sales pace. Price per square foot uses recorded living area and excludes records with no square footage.
LIMITS Fifteen closed records arrived through cross-MLS import and carry no status-change timestamp. They are included in all counts. One record carries no structure-type suffix and is excluded from the attached and detached tables only. Anaheim Hills, North Tustin, Surfside and Sunset Beach are separate MLS city areas from Anaheim, Tustin and Seal Beach respectively and are counted separately. Median values are not weighted and are sensitive to the mix of what sold in a given month. This data is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.
Questions I hear every week
Is Orange County a buyer's market or a seller's market right now?
At 2.9 months of supply it is still, technically, a seller's market — but the most balanced one the county has seen in years, and the answer flips by price band. The $1M–$2M core is competitive at 2.4 months; above $5 million, buyers hold most of the cards at more than seven.
Are Orange County home prices dropping?
The data shows a county still clearing its median sale in 21 days at $1.21 million, with the sold and asking medians close together. That looks less like falling prices and more like selective buyers, with overpriced listings sitting while well-priced ones move. Individual cities and bands vary, which is why the city table above matters more than the headline.
Why do you track the whole county if you work the coast?
Because my clients' moves rarely stay inside one city line. The Newport Beach seller is often an Orange County buyer, the Costa Mesa buyer is comparing against Huntington Beach, and every pricing conversation happens against the county backdrop. Reading all of it, monthly, is part of the job.
Can I sell my coastal home and buy anywhere in Orange County under Prop 19?
If you are 55 or older and qualify, Proposition 19 lets you transfer your existing property-tax base to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California — Orange County included. Buying at equal or lesser value than your sale price keeps the transferred base intact, and the purchase generally must occur within two years of the sale. The details are specific, so we plan both transactions together with your CPA or attorney. This is general education, not tax or legal advice.
How current is this data?
It is pulled directly from CRMLS at each month's end and covers the trailing thirty days. Active-listing counts are a point-in-time snapshot; closed-sale figures may adjust slightly as late-reported closings post. This page is rebuilt every month on fresh data.
What is my home worth against these numbers?
The county median is a backdrop, not an appraisal. A real answer comes from your street's recent comparables, your home's condition, and this month's competition — which is what a private home value review covers. Request one here.
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Elevated representation.
The county view sets the stage; your decision happens on one street, in one band, on one timeline. If you want these numbers translated into a plan — a sale, a purchase, or a Proposition 19 move that is both — that conversation is the next step.