Is It a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market in Los Angeles Right Now?

What Waiting Actually Costs You

The Fed just delivered its first rate hike since 2023, and 30-year fixed mortgage rates are sitting above 7% across every major tracker. Every time rates move, they move for everyone at once. When rates eventually come back down, the buyers who’ve been sitting on the fence come flooding back in together, get qualified together, and start bidding on the same houses together.

A 1% swing in rate can shift a typical buyer’s purchasing power by roughly 10%, and over the past year alone that volatility has been worth more than $60,000 in buying power. Waiting for the “right” rate doesn’t protect you. It just means you’re competing against everyone else who was waiting too, the second the window opens.

The Other Side of Waiting

I’ve watched this play out, and it’s not something I wish on anyone. Sellers who bought when rates were low and prices were inflated, and now have to sell for real-life reasons—a new job, a divorce, a baby on the way—are finding their home never appreciated to what they paid. That’s the actual risk of waiting for the perfect moment. The market doesn’t wait with you.

Why Locking In Now Protects You Either Way

If you can afford the payment now, and it keeps you living within your means, buying now locks you in either way the market moves. If prices go up, your home is worth more. If they don’t—and historically, LA real estate has kept climbing over time, even coming out of a stretch like this one where prices got inflated; it just may not happen as fast as it did before—you’re still making a payment you’ve already proven you can handle, in a home you own.

Compare that to renting or waiting, where you’re exposed to whatever the market does next with nothing to show for it either way, and every payment you make is going toward someone else’s equity instead of your own.

Buy Under Your Max, Not At It

That said, I never tell anyone to buy at their absolute top. When I’m showing houses, if a buyer tells me their real ceiling, I start looking meaningfully under it. Buying under your max leaves room—for renovations, for life, for the unexpected—and it keeps you from becoming house-poor with everything you have tied up in one number.

If you’re trying to work out what that breathing room looks like, start with the real costs of buying a house in Los Angeles, not just the maximum number on a pre-approval.

The Leverage On The Table Right Now

A record 42% of active listings nationwide currently have a price cut, the highest share in nearly a decade, meaning a lot of what’s for sale isn’t priced at the inflated number anymore; it’s closer to real market value. On top of that, sellers are offering real concessions to get deals done: rate buydowns where the seller covers points to lower your actual rate, closing-cost credits, and new-build incentives directly from builders. None of that was on the table a few years ago when everything was moving fast and nobody had to offer anything.

If you’re comparing credits, concessions, and what representation costs, the real estate commission calculator gives you a clean place to start the math.

So if you’re a buyer on the fence, the market isn’t asking you to wait for permission. It’s already handing you room to negotiate. The only real question left is whether you can afford it comfortably, not at your top, and if the answer is yes, this is exactly the kind of market that rewards moving instead of waiting.