$33.3 Trillion Housing Market Up 49% Since 2012 – A Third of the Gain From California

• The total value of the U.S. housing market rose $1.9 trillion in 2018 to $33.3 trillion.
• A third of the market’s $10.9 trillion gain since its housing-bust low in 2012 has come from California.
• The New York metro area’s $3 trillion in value makes it the most valuable market in the country, representing 9.1 percent of the country’s total value.

The value of the U.S. housing market continues to climb, gaining 6.2 percent in 2018 to reach a total value of $33.3 trillion. That’s up $10.9 billion from the bottom of the market in 2012 – and a third of the gain has come in California. The Golden State’s value has climbed $3.7 trillion since February 2012, the nation’s housing-crash low. No other state has gained more than $1 trillion in that same span.

The total value of all homes in the New York metro is the highest among metros analyzed, at $3 trillion – on its own accounting for 9.1 percent of the country’s total housing value. Four of the country’s 10 most valuable markets are in California: Los Angeles, which rose 5.2 percent to $2.9 trillion; San Francisco, up 9.3 percent to $1.6 trillion; San Jose, which gained 10.4 percent to $799.6 billion and San Diego, up 3.4 percent to $673.5 billion.

The housing stock in some pricey metro areas is so valuable, in fact, that the total value in one market often eclipses that of all housing in an entire state. For example, all homes in the Washington, D.C. metro are worth a combined $892 billion – which is more than the values of all homes in 40 individual states, including Colorado ($833.8 billion), Arizona ($708.1 billion), Ohio ($695 billion) and Oregon ($451.8 billion).

These numbers are so gargantuan that it’s tricky to put them in perspective. For example, even the total cinematic earnings from top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time – including Avatar, Titanic, three Avengers movies, Black Panther and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – total $17.9 billion, a drop in the housing market bucket. And Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth of $160 billion is still only about half Detroit’s $314.9 billion housing value.

Better comparisons come from the gross domestic products of entire nations. The U.S. total housing value of $33.3 trillion is equivalent to the combined GDPs of the United States ($19.4 trillion), China ($12.2 trillion) and Canada ($1.7 trillion).

Even individual metros dwarf entire countries’ economies.