The Tulare County residential real estate market has remained strong despite an overall downturn in the state.
The California housing market declined in April, according to statistics from the California Association of Realtors (CAR). There were 277,030 sales of existing, single-family homes in the state in April, a decrease of 3.4% from March, and 0.2% less than in April 2024.
At the same time, the median home price in the state reached a record high, increasing by 2.9% to $910,160.
“The housing market experienced a sluggish start to this spring buying season, as home purchase sentiment declined due to concerns over tariffs and a potential recession,” stated CAR President Heather Ozur in a press release. “With prices gradually increasing and mortgage rates remaining high, homebuyers are showing some hesitation amid the economic uncertainty.”
What does the real estate market look in Tulare County?
Home sales in the Central Valley increased by 3.4% compared to a year ago, according to CAR. The median price of a house that sold in Tulare County was $380,660 in April, up a modest 0.2% from April 2024.
Affordability is the main factor in the state real estate market, according to Visalia Mayor Brett Taylor, who is also the CEO of the Tulare County Association of Realtors, which produces home sales information for Zillow and Realtor.com.
“When you’re looking at the median price of a home in California pushing upwards of a million dollars, affordability becomes an issue,” he said. “When people just look at affordability, young families or young couples that are trying to start a family, or the younger college graduate who’s looking to start a career, when they look at buying a million-dollar home on the coast, it becomes unattainable.”
Interested home buyers will then start searching for Central Valley homes, Taylor said.
“We’ve been blessed in the Central Valley in the fact that we are one of the most affordable areas in the state,” he said. “You can still buy a brand new three-bedroom, two-bath home in Visalia for around $350,000.”
Taylor doesn’t believe that tariffs will have much of an impact on Tulare County home sales.
“Part of the reason why we don’t see the major upswings and downswings like you see in LA and coastal cities is because at the end of the day, most of the jobs around here are pretty steady jobs,” Taylor said. “There’s not a lot of swings like Las Vegas. We’re not a tourist community. Because of that, we have a fairly strong market compared to the state.”
Taylor believes that what happens at a national level will eventually impact Tulare County, but not like it would in cities like Long Beach or Oakland, where large ports are located.
“We produce food, and everyone still needs to eat,” he added.
Taylor doesn’t expect tariffs placed on food exports to be a factor, either.
“There’s only so much food in the world, and we produce a good chunk of it here, and I’m sure it’s going to be sold,” he said.
Other current events have had more of an effect on the county real estate market, according to Taylor.
“We’ve actually seen a little bit of pickup from all the other incidents that have been happening up and down the state, like the fires,” he said.
The fires that devastated much of Southern California have increased interest in Central Valley homes, although its “not a huge increase,” according to Taylor.
“We’ve heard stories of people that took some insurance money and are moving here,” he said. “I met a gentleman the other day whose son was working on the high-speed rail for the last couple years, and he just kept on saying how nice it was over here, how things were a little bit slower. It wasn’t as crazy as LA … his parents decided to move over here.
“We’re definitely seeing people moving here because when you lose that many homes, it affects everything,” Taylor said. “It affects the rental market because now those people have to go into rentals, which causes the price to go up. It really created a crunch in areas that are already crunched.”
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This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Tulare County’s housing market is bucking the statewide trend — what’s driving the boom?
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
