San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

Well, it's 2011, and yet I am still lacking the following:

• laser eyes
• hyper-evolved glasses-wearing chimp assistant
• self-aware email client
  
• minotaur
  
• huffable bacon
  
• tank full of precogs to help me match my outfits

Someone please tell science to get on it.  For now, we'll have to make do with the January resale data.

The median price per square foot took a bit of a beating last month: down 3.0 percent for detached homes, 7.2 percent for condos, and 4.5 percent in aggregate:

Well, so much for the spring 2010 double-tax-credit-stimulated rally.  The last of the effects of that entire affair have been wiped out with the latest month's drop in the median price per square foot.  Prices by this measure were down in December by 3.5 percent for single family homes, 2.4 percent for condos, and 3.0 percent in aggregate.  This brings the overall median price per square foot down to 1.2% lower than it was in December 2009 -- the first year-over-year decline in this price measure since October 2009.

The median price per square foot for detached homes didn't budge between October and November.  This fit nicely into the "flat-to-down" home price thesis I've been advancing in recent months.  The 7.4% monthly rise in the condo median made for quite a poorer fit to my theory, however.

October was a down month for the median price per square foot.  By this measure, detached homes were down .8%, condos by 3.3%, and the aggregate number by 1.6%:

The median price per square foot of San Diego homes dropped in August, at least on the whole. Condos managed to rise by 2.0% for the month, but detached homes were own 3.5%, putting the volume-weighted aggregate at -2.0%:

The continued rise in San Diego home prices has pushed valuation ratios northward -- but according to the home price-to-per capita income ratio, prices are still fairly reasonable:

In the first month after the [insert preferred double homebuyer tax credit catchphrase here], prices as measured by the median price per square foot were pretty much flat:

The Rodeo approacheth... in the meantime, for those wondering what happened to prices in the first non-double-dip month, the answer is that they were pretty flat overall:

I'd say the best part of July is not the lifting of the June Gloom, but the fact that I won't have to talk about the "double dip" any more.  Well, maybe a few more times.  Like now, for instance.  You will recall that June was the last month in which first-time buyers could get both the $8,000 federal tax credit and the $10,000 state tax credit.  The Feds later extended the June closing deadline to accomodate short sales, but they didn't announce that until more recently.  Because people buying before the April deadline thought they had to close by June, the tax credit's effect should have been used up in June for the great majority of cases.

Prices

It actually appears that the effect of the double dip may have been used up even before that.  The median price per square foot actually fell in June despite the expiring stimulus.  It dropped by a giant 10.6% for condos, more than erasing last month's almost-as-wacky gain.  But even the far less volatile single family median price per square foot fell by 1.4 percent.

Before we begin the Rodeo, you might be interested in a piece I just put up at voiceofsandiego.org on National Froth Day, when we commemorate Greenspan's first utterance of that legendary euphemism.

Assuming you have now read the afore-linked piece, celebrated Froth Day, and eventually sobered up, let's move on the to last month's housing data.

After March's surge to the upside, the median price per square foot pulled back in April:

As discussed last week, the median price per square foot of San Diego resale homes rallied hard in March. 

The median price per square foot was up about 1% in February, but that's a smaller amount that its January decline.  So I would characterize prices by this measure as continuing to go nowhere, as they have done since September.

The median price per square foot declined between December and January for both detached homes and condos:

Prices by this measure have really gone nowhere since September 2009.  As I noted at the Voice last week, the rally that began in early 2009 has clearly come to an end. 

Well, I thought the old "Shambling Toward Affordability" title for this series of articles was a bit pithier but it just doesn't quite work now that home prices have been rising for the better part of a year.  In any case, regardless of the what we want to call it, it's time to check in on San Diego housing valuations as of year-end 2009.

The 2009 home price rally reversed the direction of the shamble, but it didn't really change the overall picture, which is that San Diego home prices (in aggregate, of course) are still at middling levels of valuation.

Here's the price to per capita income ratio: