While California’s population was estimated to decline by 0.3 percent in 2022, its housing growth achieved its highest number since 2008, signaling a turning point in its longstanding housing crisis.
The California Department of Finance announced this week that statewide housing growth came in at 0.85 percent last year.
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The big picture: Throughout 2022, California added 123,350 housing units, which included 20,683 accessory dwelling units.
- The Golden State’s total housing number is now 14,707,698, while its population is estimated at 38.9 million people.
- Of the new homes, there were over 63,000 single family homes and over 51,000 multi-family housing units.
Go deeper: Yuba County had the highest housing growth at 2.3 percent, while Mariposa County was the only county to lose housing, which was due to a wildfire last year.
- Los Angeles led the state in net housing gains with 19,556 units, followed by San Diego (7,034), Oakland (4,005) and San Francisco (2,823).
- While multi-family housing growth mostly occurred in the densely populated urban areas of California, single family housing accounted for 100 percent of the growth in Roseville and Santa Clarita, followed by 91.7 percent for Fresno and 71 percent for Irvine.
A look at the Central Valley: Fresno was the lone Central Valley city to rank in the top 10 of total housing growth with 1,548 units.
- Fresno led the Valley with 1,420 single-family homes, while no Valley city placed in the top 10 in multi-family housing growth.
- Fresno County’s housing growth was led by Kingsburg at 4.3 percent, followed closely behind by Fowler at 4.1 percent. Fresno experienced 0.9 percent housing growth while Clovis had a 1.5 percent gain.
- In San Joaquin County, Lathrop placed second in the entire state with 15.78 percent housing growth, while Kern County’s Shafter was fifth at 5.21 percent.
- Stanislaus County’s largest housing growth came in Waterford (2.4 percent) and Hughson (2.1 percent).
- Merced had 2.6 percent housing growth, Los Banos had 2.1 percent growth. In Madera County, Chowchilla had had a 2.2 percent increase, Madera had a 1 percent increase and the unincorporated areas had a housing gain of 2.3 percent.
- Kings County’s largest housing gains came in Hanford at 1.9 percent, while Tulare County’s largest gains came in Dinuba (1.7 percent), Woodlake (1.5 percent) and Visalia (1.4 percent).
- In Kern County, following Shafter was Delano (3.9 percent), California City (2.1 percent), Wasco (1.4 percent) and Bakersfield (1 percent).
