Experts say Anaheim's housing market may never be normal again

In a state long known for its housing extremes, one metro may have crossed the point of no return.

A new report from Redfin projects that Anaheim is the only California market unlikely to return to pre-pandemic affordability levels — even if home prices flatline for the next decade.

While other pricey markets like San Francisco and Oakland are slowly drifting back toward 2018-era ratios of housing costs to income, Anaheim’s home values have surged so dramatically that a reset may be completely out of reach.

“It would be nearly impossible to go back to pre-pandemic levels, even in the next 10 years,” Chen Zhao, head of economic research at Redfin, told SFGate in an interview. 5

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Redfin’s analysis relies on a mortgage payment-to-income ratio to gauge affordability, comparing t