These California cities will see home sales skyrocket in 2024: study

LOS ANGELES - If you're looking to buy a home in the new year, things are looking sunnier than ever in Southern California, where most of the top housing markets in the U.S. are expected to spike in 2024, according to a new study. 

Real estate company Realtor.com ranked the largest 100 metros by their summed expected sale and price growth rates for their 2024 National Housing Forecast. The study found five of the top eight metropolitan areas predicted to break double-digit growth in 2024 are in the Golden State. 

Those metro areas are: Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura (18%), Bakersfield (13.4%), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, (13.8%), and San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad (11%).

Home sales in the  Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area are predicted to climb 9.2%, according to economists.

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These five metros are expected to have sales growth of 13.1%, on average, in 2024, compared to an average decline of 4.1% for other Californian metros in the largest 100 list.  

Mirroring national figures expected to total roughly 25% below 2017-2019 norms, sales in these Californian metros are also expected to be 20% to 35% lower than the typical pre-pandemic year in 2017 to 2019.

According to the data, sales are expected to remain mostly flat in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley area and decline in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara region.

"Among California metros, an interesting split emerges. Five California metros entered our top 10 list of housing markets but none were Bay Area or Northern Californian metros," Realtor noted.

Nationwide, Toledo, Ohio stood out as the only market on the list that is projected to do better than the average home sales count during pre-pandemic times. 

Here's a look at the top 10: 

1. Toledo, Ohio
2. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.
3. Rochester, New York
4. San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, Calif.
5. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.
6. Bakersfield, Calif.
7. Springfield, Mass.
8. Worcester, Massachusetts-Connecticut
9. Grand Rapids-Kentwood, Mich.
10. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif.

To get the results, analysts at Realtor.com used data on the housing market and overall economy to estimate 2024 values for variables for the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas by population size. Those markets were then ranked by combined forecasted growth in home prices and sales. 

To see the full report, tap or click here. 

FOX Television Stations contributed to this report.