Based on the results of a recent study, the top place to buy a home in California is Hawthorne, a city in Los Angeles County that’s home to Elon Musk’s Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Co.
Research by the financial website GoBankingRates—which aims to find “the best place to buy a home in every state based on the quality of the area and what sort of value you can expect based on the local housing market”—analyzed each sate using five metrics.
Among them: livability (examining factors such as amenities, employment and education); median home listing price; median home value; home value forecast (gauging the “return you can expect on your money”); and buyer-seller index (a score that determines “whether the current market favors people looking for housing or looking to sell” relative to other towns in that same metro area).
“whether the current market favors people looking for housing or looking to sell” relative to other towns in that same metro area).
The study showed that Hawthorne has a livability score of 70, while the home value forecast is 6.7 percent and the buyer-seller index is 0.11. Buyers can expect to pay a median listing price of $648,944, with the median home value coming in at $647,700.
Although home values in Hawthorne are up more than 9 percent during the past year, they’re still pretty inexpensive compared with other cities in the Golden State. In San Francisco, the median home value is well over $1.3 million, and in San Jose, it’s more than $1 million.