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Home prices in these California cities just hit record highs — even amid a cooling market

October 20, 2025 By Christian Leonard 2 Comments

While prices remain much higher in most of California’s major cities than they did before the pandemic, they’ve dipped over the past year.

What do laid-back San Luis Obispo and agricultural Madera have in common? They’re the only two kinds of cities whose homes are reaching record prices.

California’s housing market is in something of a rut. Unfavorable interest rates, a softening job market and general economic anxiety are driving many buyers away, forcing some sellers to cut prices.

It’s a far cry not just from before the pandemic, when prices in white-collar urban centers like San Francisco climbed quickly, but even from a few years ago, when pandemic-era migration into the suburbs of those cities sparked bidding wars across the country.

And while prices remain much higher in most of California’s major cities than they did before the pandemic — most dramatically on the Peninsula and in the South Bay — Zillow data shows the state’s typical home value dipped 2% from September 2024 to September 2025.

But then there’s idyllic San Luis Obispo, where the typical value of a mid-priced home grew by about 3% to $1.1 million last month — its highest-ever level — according to Zillow’s data. (Zillow’s estimates do not adjust for inflation, which would set most cities’ records back a year or two).

Some of the other towns that hit record highs are also laid-back coastal communities, like Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County and Carlsbad in San Diego County. But others are decidedly not: Madera, Hanford and other small cities in the San Joaquin Valley have also kept climbing. Even more dramatically, all but one of the incorporated cities in low-income Imperial County, on the Mexican border, also hit record highs.

California cities whose home values hit record highs in September 2025

Sorted by population, with counties in parentheses. Values are not inflation-adjusted.

Carlsbad in San Diego saw an 87% rise from 2019, followed by Newport Beach at 77%, Madera at 56%, Hanford at 51% and SLO at 46%.

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City	Value	From 2024	From 2019
Carlsbad (San Diego)	$1.2M	+4%	+87%
Newport Beach (Orange)	$3.4M	+4%	+77%
Madera (Madera)	$418K	+2%	+56%
Hanford (Kings)	$373K	+2%	+51%
San Luis Obispo (San Luis Obispo)	$1.1M	+3%	+46%
El Centro (Imperial)	$375K	+7%	+54%
San Gabriel (Los Angeles)	$1.1M	+2%	+42%
Calexico (Imperial)	$381K	+7%	+53%
Atascadero (San Luis Obispo)	$767K	+2%	+45%
Brawley (Imperial)	$350K	+4%	+47%
Sanger (Fresno)	$410K	+2%	+52%
Selma (Fresno)	$356K	+2%	+52%
Imperial (Imperial)	$426K	+7%	+68%
Nipomo (San Luis Obispo)	$927K	+4%	+52%
Carpinteria (Santa Barbara)	$1.5M	+5%	+63%

Data for smaller cities may be based on only a few sales and have wide margins of error.

Table: Christian Leonard/S.F. ChronicleSource: Zillow

What these areas have in common is that they’re hours away from massive employers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, reflecting an extended shift for the California housing market. The pandemic led to a surge in home purchases near — but not in — urban cores as remote workers sought more space and middle-income families moved inland for lower expenses. As businesses called workers back to the office and interest rates spiked, those moves slowed to a trickle.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Homes, Insurance

California’s home insurer of last resort seeks 36% rate hike following January fires

October 6, 2025 By Laurence Darmiento 1 Comment

The California FAIR Plan, the state’s home insurer of last resort, is seeking an average 35.8% rate hike, its largest in years, following billions of dollars of losses incurred in the January fire storms.

The Los Angeles-based insurance pool, operated and backed by the state’s licensed home insurers, filed this week for the dwelling policy rate hike, which must be reviewed and could be reduced by the state insurance commissioner.

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“By statute, FAIR Plan rates must be sufficient to pay anticipated claims and expenses,” said FAIR Plan spokesperson Hilary McLean in a statement. “The FAIR Plan is working closely with the California Department of Insurance to ensure its rates reflect the current risk portfolio, expenses and growth as the state’s insurer of last resort.”

The plan, which has added hundreds of thousands of policyholders in recent years as insurers have pulled back from the market amid rising wildfires, has estimated losses of $4 billion from the January blazes. Those losses forced it to assess its member carriers $1 billion in order to pay all claims.

The rate hike would hit individual homeowners unevenly, with many experiencing greater increases and others seeing decreases if they live in neighborhoods that are not prone to wildfires. The new rates would apply in April and homeowners can seek discounts of up to 15% if they take steps to reduce the fire risks on their property.

The rate hike, if approved, would easily top increases of 20.3% in 2019 and nearly 16% in 2021 and 2023. However, the 2023 rate hike of 15.7% was cut down by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara from the 48.8% initially sought by the plan.

The request for the increase is bound to be controversial given accusations over how the plan has handled smoke damage claims stemming from the Jan. 7 blazes and other fires dating back to last decade.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Insurance, rate hikes, Wildfire

From wildfires to foster care: California insurance crisis expands to agencies helping at-risk youth

July 24, 2025 By Michelle Bandur 2 Comments

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s insurance crisis now includes the foster care system.

The main provider of foster care agencies is dropping its insurance coverage for the nonprofits, causing some to close.

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For two decades, Robin and Mark Malloy have opened their Elk Grove home to 39 foster children.

The Malloys rely on a lot of help, including wrap-around resources provided by a foster family agency, or FFA.

“They are the liaison, so it’s like we tell them what this kid is asking for and they’re on it,” said Robin Malloy.

Mark Malloy agreed. “If there’s an issue we’re having, they provide the necessary resources to assist,” he said.

FFAs are private, nonprofit organizations that recruit and support foster families.

There are about 200 in the state.

The California Department of Social Services reports that as of May 31, 13 FFAs have closed, which served 148 foster youth.

So far, the agency said no child placements have been disrupted by the closures.

Chris Stoner-Mertz of the California Alliance of Child Family Services said those children ultimately become the responsibility of the county.

“And many of these counties are struggling,” Stoner-Mertz said.

Foster family agencies are struggling to afford new, more expensive insurance policies, resulting from high payouts in civil lawsuits.

Stoner-Mertz compared the sexual abuse claims and settlements to the wildfires and loss of homeowners’ insurance.

“It’s almost like it’s a cascading effect rather than an immediate in-your-face crisis that people can see and feel, which makes it in some ways harder to get the attention we need on it,” she said.

Click here to read the full article in KCRA

Filed Under: Cartoons, Trending News Tagged With: at risk youths, California Politics, Insurance

California’s Homeowners’ Insurance Market Is Broken; Here’s How to Repair It

June 21, 2025 By Kristian Fors 1 Comment

The impact of California’s dysfunctional regulatory framework has been exacerbated by increasingly devastating wildfires, magnifying the risk to insurance companies

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California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara recently stated that “we are in a statewide insurance crisis, affecting millions of Californians.”

In the last few years, major insurance companies like State Farm General have restricted new business in California and have failed to renew thousands of their previous policies. Without the ability to obtain traditional homeowners’ insurance, many California homeowners have obtained coverage through the FAIR Plan, the state’s “insurer of last resort.” This has placed the plan on the brink of financial insolvency and has already necessitated a $1 billion bailout for the plan following the Los Angeles wildfires.

Insurance companies have pulled out of California because the state’s regulatory system renders insurance rates inadequate relative to the risk that insurers are exposed to. Under California’s Proposition 103, insurance rates are subject to a “prior approval system” in which rates must be approved by an elected insurance commissioner prior to their use.

This system restricts which variables are allowed to be incorporated into insurance rates and compounds the inadequacy of insurance rates through regulatory lag and the fact that it takes months for insurance rates to be approved. Some of the practices that California regulations have historically prohibited—such as the utilization of forward-looking catastrophe models and factoring reinsurance costs into rates—are critical in disaster-prone states like California. Proposition 103 also effectively limits rate increases to 6.9% at a time, the maximum permitted increase without a hearing.

The difference between “actuarially sound” rates—which are priced in accordance with risk—and rates that are approved by regulators is called regulatory rate suppression. Research by the International Center for Law & Economics reveals that for both home and auto insurance, California has the worst regulatory rate suppression in the nation. Despite the fact that California is a high-risk, disaster-prone, and expensive state, the average annual cost of homeowners’ insurance is nearly $700 less than the national average.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Insurance, Legislature, Wildfires

Department of Insurance Holds Public Hearing Over Proposed State Farm Insurance Rate Hike

April 11, 2025 By Evan Symon Leave a Comment

State Farm lowers proposed emergency increase from 22% to 17%

The California Department of Insurance held a public hearing on Tuesday to help determine if they should accept the request by State Farm Insurance to increase the rate on rental homes, non-rental homes, rental units, and condos by at least 17% with an emergency rate hike.

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For the past few years, State Farm, like other insurance companies in California, has drastically increased insurance rates and has began limiting who they cover within the state. This has included State Farm raising auto insurance rates in March 2023, announcing that they would no longer be accepting new applications for any kind of insurance other than personal vehicle insurance in May 2023, a 20% home insurance rate increase in January 2024, removing 72,000 insurance policies in the state, roughly 2% of their total number in California, in March 2024, and a big 50% rate increase request coming in July 2024.

While the insurance situation seemed to have improved at the beginning of the year, this was upended by the wildfires in Los Angeles. Combined, the Eaton and Palisades Fires caused 30 deaths, 16,255 destroyed structures and a further 2,088 damaged structures. With so many homes and rental buildings either destroyed or damaged, insurance companies were suddenly flooded with tons of claims. No company was expecting so many claims, especially total loss claims, to come at once. This included State Farm who sought an emergency rate hike of 22%. When broken down, the company seeks an increase of 22% for non-tenant homeowners, 15% for renters and condominium owners, and up to 38% for rental dwellings.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who initially signaled that he might not approve the request, conditionally approved the requested 22% insurance rate hike last month, but with the caveat of State Farm having to justify their reasons for an increase at a public hearing in April. On Tuesday, public hearings finally began.

State Farm said that the large rate hike was necessary as the large scale of the fire caused over $1 billion being paid out by February 1st. With huge losses mounting for the company, they said that the rate hike would help rebuild their finances and avoid dropping even more policyholders in the state than they already have. In testimony on Tuesday, State Farm revealed that their company surplus has gone from $4 billion in 2015 to only $600 million in 2024. They also revealed that they would no longer be pursuing a 22% rate increase, but now only a 17% increase.

“If State Farm Generals’ financial strength rating were downgraded, hundreds of thousands of consumers would lose their insurance,” said State Farm lawyer Katherine Wellington in opening remarks.

“The department agrees with State Farm that this is an emergency situation,” added Department of Insurance assistant chief counsel Nikki McKennedy, speaking for Lara who was not at the hearing. “Nothing in this situation is normal. The normal rules do not apply. We’re on the Titanic, and we see the iceberg. Now is not the time to argue about where to put the deck chairs.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Fires, Insurance

Bogotá and Paris? CA insurance boss takes series of taxpayer-funded trips, raising concerns

March 28, 2025 By Stephanie Sierra 1 Comment

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — After missing the first key state insurance briefing of the year while traveling in Bermuda, questions have been raised about the attendance record of California’s Insurance Commissioner since Ricardo Lara assumed office in 2019.

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7 On Your Side obtained and analyzed hundreds of public records that detail at least 46 cross-country and international trips all over the world — including at least 11 taxpayer-funded excursions to places like Bogota, Paris, and Toronto. But after more than a month of questioning his office, Lara’s staff has been unable to identify the business purpose for nearly all of them.

Insurance hearing attendance

California’s insurance commissioner is an elected position — with the main objective to ensure a healthy competitive insurance market.

Yet in the midst of the state’s worsening insurance crisis, Ricardo Lara was not present during the state’s first insurance briefing of the year: a Senate committee hearing in the wake of the Los Angeles fires, which took place on March 12, 2025. Instead, Chief Deputy Commissioner Michael Martinez stood in on behalf of Commissioner Lara.

To put this in perspective, the Senate Insurance Committee only has two to three key informational hearings a year. They are held to provide important updates on California’s evolving insurance market.

It’s raising questions — has this happened before? And where was the Commissioner?

Turns out, Commissioner Lara was at a conference in Bermuda with insurance executives in mid-March to give a 15-minute speech. Records show Lara did the same thing in March of last year, missing another key Assembly insurance hearing — also while on the islands of Bermuda.

However, two months after missing the March 2024 hearing, the Commissioner was able to make a “Legislative Study Tour” in the United Kingdom for eight days. And he wasn’t late for a “Climate Presentation” to the Central Bank of Uruguay later that month. And he didn’t miss his flight to Honolulu the following week for a “policy training.” Public records show taxpayers picked up his four-star hotel bill.

What public records show

Click here to read the full article in ABC News

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Insurance, Lara, Legislature

California Department of Insurance Provisionally Accepts State Farm’s Requested 22% Rate Hike

March 17, 2025 By Evan Symon 2 Comments

Company must justify reasons for rate increase at a public hearing on April 8th

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced on Friday that he has conditionally approved the requested 22% insurance rate hike by State Farm, but only if they can justify their reasons for an increase at a public hearing in April.

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For over two years, insurance companies have been limiting policies, ending new policies, or generally reducing their presence in the state. In 2022, GEICO closed down all 38 of their offices in the state, with State Farm raising auto insurance rates in March of 2023. However, the largest action came in May 2023 when State Farm Insurance announced that they would no longer be accepting new applications for any kind of insurance other than personal vehicle insurance because of large increases in construction costs and inflation. About a week later, it was revealed that Allstate did the same thing, stopping all new homeowners insurance policies for the last several months. Later in the year, Farmers announced new limits on the number of new homeowner insurance policies it will give each month, with numerous other insurance companies, like Liberty Mutual, no longer offering certain policies in the state.

In August 2023, Farmer’s announced 2,400 layoffs, with nearly all companies raising rates by at least 20% in late 2023 and early 2024, including State Farm. For the companies, the reasons were simple: large increases in construction and reconstruction costs, a rise in crime, inflation, and a largely increased risk of danger because of more wildfires. In March 2024, State Farm also made the drastic decision to remove 72,000 insurance policies in the state, roughly 2% of their total number in California. Two months later, both the Tokio Marine America Insurance Company and the Trans Pacific Insurance Company announced they would be pulling completely out of California, ending over 10,000 home and umbrella insurance policies. Finally, more home insurance rate increases were announced later in 2024, including 15% for Travelers, 34% for Allstate, and up to 50% for State Farm.

However, going into 2025, things began to stabilize in the industry, with some insurance companies, like Farmers, actually announcing an increase in the number of news homeowner and rental policies. But that changed following the wildfires in Los Angeles. Combined, the Eaton and Palisades Fires caused 29 deaths, 16,255 destroyed structures and a further 2,088 damaged structures. With so many homes and rental buildings either destroyed or damaged, insurance companies were suddenly flooded with tons of claims. No company was expecting so many claims, especially total loss claims, to come at once.

As a result, facing all but certain sky-high payouts, State Farm announced in early February that they asked the Department of Insurance to approve an emergency rate hike for all home owners and renters. Across the board, they asked for an increase of 22% for non-tenant homeowners, 15% for renters and condominium owners, and up to 38% for rental dwellings. Doing so would help avert “a dire situation” in the state. In addition, the company said that over 8,700 fire claims have been filed so far, with over $1 billion paid out by February 1st. They also said the fires will likely go down as the costliest disaster in company history.

While initially guarded with a response, the Department of Insurance slowly began to more towards State Farm’s side of the issue, especially after State Farm maintained that it would be an emergency interim increase and that they now stand to pay out $7.6 billion in claims from the fires. In a late February meeting with Lara, State Farm told him that while it can cover claims from the Southern California wildfires, the disaster overall worsened its financial condition.

A 22% rate increase

“The role of Insurance Commissioner involves balancing a stable and sustainable insurance market that serves consumers with effective oversight. To ensure long-term choices for Californians, I had to make an unprecedented decision in the short term,” explained Lara on Friday.

“State Farm claims it is committed to its California customers and aims to restore financial stability. I expect both State Farm and its parent company to meet their responsibilities and not shift the burden entirely onto their customers. The facts will be revealed in an open, transparent hearing.

“Currently, too many Californians live in fear of having their insurance policies non-renewed. This anxiety perpetuates misinformation and discourages consumers from accessing their entitled benefits. This situation is unacceptable. I will remain vigilant in ensuring that State Farm processes claims fairly, fully, and promptly, and stands by its California customers.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Insurance, Legislature

California lawmakers propose fixes for ‘insurance industry in shambles’

March 12, 2025 By Levi Sumagaysay 2 Comments

by Levi Sumagaysay

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

The fires that reduced Altadena, Pacific Palisades and other Los Angeles-area neighborhoods to rubble have also shined a harsh light on California’s raging insurance crisis.

Lawmakers have proposed a variety of bills to address the issues illuminated by the disaster, plus others that predate it. Some of the legislation would be the first of its kind in the nation.

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The fire-insurance provider of last resort

One measure would put the state’s top two lawmakers on the governing committee of the FAIR Plan, the association of insurance companies that’s required by law to provide fire insurance to property owners who can’t find it anywhere else.

The FAIR Plan said last month that it was at risk of running out of money due to claims from the LA fires and asked for a $1 billion lifeline. Its member insurance companies were on the hook for that amount, and could try to pass along up to half of the cost to their customers.

The plan has become more important over the past several years as insurance companies have stopped renewing or writing new policies in California, so state officials have a keen interest in its solvency and ability to serve a growing number of customers. But the plan is not run by the state, it is run by a management team that’s accountable to the pool of insurers.

Lawmakers hope that adding state officials to the group of people overseeing the FAIR Plan will help it run better and improve the lives of its customers.

“The association has grown to such an extent that its financial capacity to pay claims after a catastrophic fire is unlikely,” says Assembly Bill 234, a bill by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area. “Increased transparency is imperative.”

Calderon’s bill calls for the speaker of the Assembly and the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Rules to immediately become non-voting members of the FAIR Plan’s governing committee. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who has limited authority over the plan, backs the bill. The FAIR Plan has not taken a position on the legislation, according to plan spokesperson Hilary McLean.

If the bill passes, California could be the first state to put lawmakers on a FAIR Plan board, although several states have insurance department representatives on boards for their own FAIR Plan equivalents, said Stephen Jablonski, president of Property Insurance Plans Service Office, a nonprofit that tracks state residual property insurance plans.

California’s FAIR Plan would not disclose the members of its governing board.

Concerns about the FAIR Plan go beyond its financial stability. As the fire insurance provider of last resort, issues surrounding the way it serves its customers have come up again and again. Placing state officials on the plan’s board could help address some of those issues.

In early February, Betty Ryder and her husband received a renewal notice for one policy on their Los Angeles-area home but not for their FAIR Plan policy, which is when they discovered that they did not have fire insurance on the property all of last year despite paying for it.

That meant the couple was uninsured at a time when their home was particularly vulnerable: Ryder and her husband live in Tujunga, a neighborhood that Ryder said was “right between the three fires” that burned in Los Angeles County earlier this year.

Ryder got on the phone with her broker, her mortgage company and a representative from the FAIR Plan to figure out what happened. The agent for the FAIR Plan told her the plan had incorrectly applied someone else’s payment to her account and that it canceled her policy after that realization.

So she started writing letters: to the president of the FAIR Plan, to Lara, to her mortgage company, to her broker.

“I was in tears,” she said. “We’re old, we’re in our 70s,” she added, referring to herself and her husband, William.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California, California Politics, Fires, Insurance

California FAIR Plan is running out of money; nearly all homeowners to help bail it out

February 14, 2025 By Megan Fan Munce Leave a Comment

The California FAIR Plan does not have enough money to weather the impact of the record-breaking Los Angeles wildfires on its own. Instead, it will turn to private insurers for help — triggering a process where insured California homeowners across the state will end up paying part of the bill.

The California Department of Insurance approved the FAIR Plan’s request to collectively charge private insurance companies $1 billion in order to help pay claims, the department announced Tuesday. Without it, the FAIR Plan would have run out of money by March, according to the official order. It’s the first time in just over three decades that the FAIR Plan has turned to private insurers for money.

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A new agreement, brokered last year by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and the FAIR Plan, means insurers will be able to pass along half of such extra charges — in this case $500 million — to their policyholders.

When divided up, the payment to individual policyholders is likely to be small. Without factoring in businesses, $500 million split up among the 8.3 million California households insured by the private market is roughly $60 per policyholder.

Each insurer will be charged according to their market share of residential and commercial policies. The charge will appear on policyholder’s bills as a one-time fee, rather than a rate hike. Homeowners who get their insurance through non-admitted, also known as surplus line, insurers will not be charged, but that is a minority of the state — just 41,500 policyholders as of 2023. The Department of Insurance plans to issue guidelines on how insurers can calculate the divvying up of the costs to individual customers, according to Michael Soller, deputy commissioner with the department.

As of Feb. 9, the FAIR Plan received just under 4,800 claims from wildfire survivors and had paid $914 million — more than double what it had in reserves prior to the fire, according to the insurer. Roughly 97% of those claims so far have been residential, and the other 3% are commercial, according to Soller. The insurer estimates its total losses will be around $4 billion. A Chronicle analysis of FAIR Plan data found the insurer represented roughly 16% of all homes in the ZIP codes in and around the fire footprints, compared to just 5% of homes statewide.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Fire, Gavin Newsom, Insurance