Rolling Hills Estates Home Values Just Fell for the First Time in Years

Published July 26, 2026

Zillow's Rolling Hills Estates home value index has sat below year ago levels for fourteen straight months, now $1,896,979, down 0.8 percent year over year, the first sustained decline the city has seen since 2023.

Rolling Hills Estates home values have been below where they stood a year earlier for fourteen months running. Zillow's Home Values page for Rolling Hills Estates puts the current index at $1,896,979, down 0.8 percent from $1,911,731 a year ago, as of the June 2026 update. It is the city's first extended stretch of falling values since 2023. Redfin's monthly sale prices are choppier but lean the same way.

What the numbers actually show

I want to be precise, because "home values are falling" can mean several different things depending on which number you are looking at.

Zillow's figure is the Zillow Home Value Index, a modeled estimate built across every home in the city, not just the ones that sold. That index for Rolling Hills Estates peaked in early 2026 near $1,918,000 in January, then eased down through the spring to $1,896,979 as of June. The year over year comparison has been negative every single month since May 2025, the longest stretch of decline the index has shown since a shorter dip in 2023. The pace has actually been slowing. Last fall the index was down closer to 3.5 percent year over year. By June it had narrowed to 0.8 percent. This looks less like a market falling off a cliff and more like a market that ran hot for a couple of years and is now settling.

Redfin's Rolling Hills Estates housing market page tracks something different, the actual median price of homes that closed each month, and it is a noisier picture. In April 2026, the median sale price came in around $1.6 million, down roughly 11 percent from April a year earlier. February and March also showed double digit year over year declines. Then May flipped hard the other way, up around 45.8 percent year over year on Redfin's numbers. That is not a change in direction for the market. Rolling Hills Estates is a small, low volume city, often only a handful of closings in a given month, so a single month's median can swing hard depending on which specific homes happened to sell. A couple of large estate closings in May was almost certainly enough to pull that month's median sharply higher on its own, the same dynamic that can pull a thin month's number down just as fast. Read one month at a time, Redfin's line is genuinely choppy this spring, not a clean decline. That is exactly why Zillow's smoothed index, which points down across the same stretch, is the more trustworthy read on the underlying trend here.

Why this matters more here than in a typical neighborhood

Rolling Hills Estates is not a high turnover market. It is large lots, established streets, and owners who tend to hold for decades. That is exactly the kind of market where a modeled index like Zillow's ZHVI is the more useful signal, because there simply are not enough monthly sales for a sale price median to be reliable on its own. The thinner sales data will bounce around from month to month, May's spike is a good example, but when the modeled index holds a steady direction for over a year, that is worth taking seriously, even if the size of the move is modest so far.

It is also worth saying plainly that a 0.8 percent pullback on an index that is still sitting near $1.9 million is not a crash. Values in this city are still roughly double what they were a decade ago. What has changed is the direction of travel after a long run up, and that shift is the actual news here, not the size of it.

What this means for your property

If you own a legacy lot in Rolling Hills Estates, a modest pullback in the home value index is not, on its own, a reason to do anything differently with the property. It is a reason to look harder at how the property earns, not just what it might sell for on paper. Large lot cities like this one are exactly where an ADU or a guest house can matter most, because the land already supports it and a second unit adds rental income that does not depend on the resale market moving in your favor. When appreciation slows, income becomes a bigger share of what a property is actually worth to its owner, and that math does not show up on a Zillow index or a Redfin median. It shows up in a proper look at your specific lot, your zoning, and what a second unit would actually cost to build and rent out.

That is the kind of number Schofield's financial model is built to produce, a property specific read on rental income potential, not a citywide average.

Common questions

Is a 0.8 percent decline in the home value index something to worry about?

On its own, no. It is a modest pullback after a long run up, and the pace of decline has actually been narrowing month over month through the spring of 2026. It is worth watching because it has now persisted for over a year, but the size of the move so far is not dramatic.

Why does Redfin's sale price number look like a bigger decline than Zillow's index?

Redfin's figure is the median price of homes that actually closed in a given month, and Rolling Hills Estates does not have many monthly sales. A small number of unusually priced homes can swing that median sharply in either direction. Zillow's index smooths across every home in the city, sold or not, so it moves more gradually.

Does a falling home value index mean I should build an ADU or guest house instead of waiting to sell?

It depends entirely on your lot, your zoning, and your numbers, not on a citywide index. What a slower resale market does is make rental income a larger share of a property's real value relative to appreciation. Whether an ADU pencils out for your specific lot is a question a proper financial model, and a licensed contractor or appraiser, needs to answer.

Last verified: July 25, 2026. Zillow figures from Zillow's Rolling Hills Estates Home Values page, data through the June 2026 update. Redfin figures from Redfin's Rolling Hills Estates housing market data through May 2026, a thin and volatile month to month series in this city. Both figures move over time and can update before you read this. This is general information for property owners, not investment, valuation, or legal advice. Confirm current valuation, zoning, and ADU feasibility with a licensed appraiser, broker, or contractor before making any financial decision.

Kellie

Schofield Properties

323 Richmond Street, El Segundo, CA 90245

Topics: investing, rolling-hills-estates, south-bay, market-trends

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