Los Angeles County homes are the most overpriced in the nation, according to a curious new study.

And Orange County and the Inland Empire don’t score much better.

Bill Emmons, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, looked at the changing relationship between state incomes and regional home pricing between 2000 and 2018’s first quarter to determine a “fair value” for local housing in 41 major metropolitan areas. Then Emmons considered how far current pricing deviated from each area’s norm.

By his math, Los Angeles County had the most overvalued U.S. homes, an eye-catching 68.6 percent above what research showed was normal. That was ahead of Miami (64.6 percent overvalued) and San Francisco (61.9 percent overvalued).

Orange County was fourth in overvaluation, 52.4 percent above its norm, followed by Portland (49.7 percent); Philadelphia (46.9 percent); Seattle (45.6 percent); San Diego (44.2 percent); and the Inland Empire (42.8 percent).

The study seems to treat home prices somewhat like Wall Street looks at a company’s earnings — a world that’s part science, part beauty contest. Some results are more popular than others.

In this case of housing, Emmons wondered how much can local amenities — from climate to culture to opportunity — explain the wide valuation gaps. Or is high pricing simply a “fad” or a “bubble”?

Emmons says his study shows that West Coast housing is priced above established norms “assuming that house prices in 2000 made some sense.”

I have a quibble with this math. To my eye, trends in median incomes do not fully capture the economic impact of noteworthy employment creation. Without jobs, housing falls flat. And without jobs, people leave.

For example, look at Los Angeles County job growth since 2000 — up 9 percent. Compare that to an 8 percent decline in jobs for Detroit, this study’s most undervalued market at 39 percent below its norm. L.A.’s population is up 6 percent since 2000, Wayne County — home to Detroit — has lost 15 percent of its residents.

Jobs and population are a small factor to Emmons, who says “there could be a weak tendency for faster population growth to push up house prices, controlling for average incomes and assuming constant amenities over time.”

I will also note when Fitch Ratings looked at housing risk in 20 U.S. markets with the first-quarter data, it found Las Vegas as most overvalued (20 to 24 percent too high); followed by Portland (15 to 19 percent); Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas (10 to 14 percent); and then the Los Angeles-Orange County market and six others at 5 to 9 percent too high.

So does Emmons think his high West Coast overvaluations mean a sharp housing reversal is coming?

“As for whether these prices are too high in the sense that they must fall — no, that’s not inevitable, either,” he says. But his gut tells him otherwise.

“I think L.A. house prices are likely to fall, but there’s no way to know when or by how much. And they may go right back up again after they fall,” he says. “High volatility seems to be the historical pattern in L.A. and other California metro areas.

“I think the best explanation is that West Coast metro housing markets are bubbly — people bid up prices to crazy levels, prices crash, and then the process starts all over again,” he said.