How much California home prices have jumped since 1984

A bombshell study reveals California has the nation’s largest housing inflation gap, forcing buyers to shell out hundreds of thousands more than they should.

The new study, conducted by Clever Real Estate, compares current median home prices versus what homes would cost if prices kept pace with inflation since 1984.

The report reveals that since 1984, home prices have grown 441% while inflation only grew 210%. If prices matched inflation, the median home would cost $242,309 today compared to $423,100 nationwide.

National inflation went up by 47.7% between January 2011 and January 2026, but home prices rose faster in all 50 of the largest metros. In Miami and Phoenix, prices outpaced general inflation by 201% and 177%, respectively.

However, the largest gaps between home prices and inflation in dollar terms were in California cities.

“A San Jose home costs $1,375,000 but would be only $642,288 following inflation alone, a difference of $732,712. The next largest gaps are in San Diego ($432,043), Los Angeles ($429,794), and San Francisco ($416,170),” the report said.

Riverside also had a gap of $303,991 while Fresno’s was $220,493. Since 2011, home prices have tripled in 13 of the 50 largest metros, such as in Riverside, Fresno and Sacramento.

Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis-based real estate company founded in 2017 that helps connect homeowners to local realtors, compared “four decades of federal home price data with the Consumer Prime Index” and “ran the same comparison across the 50 most populous US metros over the past 15 years” for the study.

Although housing prices in all 50 metros outpaced inflation since 2011, costs in 27 of the 50 metros have begun to trail inflation over the past year.

Inflation increased 2.4% between January of last year and January of this year as home prices rose 1.4%.

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