San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

San Diego's home price decline continued in March, according to the Case-Shiller home price index:

For the month, the high tier was down 1.2%, the mid tier 2.3%, and the low tier 3.4%. Compared to earlier in the year, the month-to-month declines slowed somewhat for the high tier, even less for the middle tier, and imperceptibly for the low tier. That's what passes for a spring rally in this market.

The following graph shows the three tiers' declines from their respective peaks.

Following up on April's record-breaking foreclosure numbers, here is a look at how sales are stacking up against default notices:

The idea behind this chart is that NODs serve as a proxy for future must-sell inventory (or "phantom inventory," as ocrenter puts it). Comparing sales volume to the incidence of NODs provides kind of a rough measure of how much demand there is in addition to probable/future must-sell supply.

Assuming the EDD didn't go too nuts with the birth-death model last month, San Diego's non-housing economy was strong enough to resist the pull of the housing boom beneficiary sectors.

There's a more detailed discussion of the above graph over at voiceofsandiego.org. Below are a couple of pigg-only bonus graphs.

April was another record-setting month for both NODs and NOTs:

Note #1: My pal Ramsey has developed what he calls a "Contagion Indicator" wherein he tracks the percentage of San Diego NOD, NOT, and REO homes with original loan amounts over $500,000. Here are the April numbers. (Please note that the phrasing on the following table has been clarified a bit from the original post to avoid confusion).

Ramsey's Contagion Indicator
NOD: 21.3% of NODs had loans over $500k
NOT: 21.9% of NOTs had loans over $500k
REO: 20.4% of REOs had loans over $500k

These numbers are a little higher than I would have expected given all the chatter about foreclosures being a low-tier-only phenomenon. It will be interesting to see how much this indicator changes in the months ahead.

There was actually a glimmer of good, or at least not-bad, news in the resale data last month.

But first, prices. As measured by the size-adjusted median price, they continue to drop: down 3.3% for single family homes, .3% for condos, and 2.3% in volume-weighted aggregate:

Yet another crunchy beating was dispensed to the Case-Shiller-HPI last month.

Just a couple quick graphs today, friends.

Alrighty... it's time for the monthly resale data roundup. But first, a brief word from our sponsor (that would be me): I just put up a fairly comprehensive list of frequently asked questions over at the website of Pacific Capital Associates, the financial advisory firm I work with, and I thought I’d include a link here for anyone interested in what that’s all about.

OK, onto the business at hand. As I noted on Friday, February's bloodshed in the median-based price indicators was not repeated in March:

Hello all -- look for a data rodeo this weekend. In the meantime, a brief writeup on March resale prices is available at voiceofsandiego.org. The bears won't get much satisfaction this month, but after last month's brutality, do you really need it?

The Case-Shiller home price index for San Diego didn't get spanked as badly as it did last month but it was nonetheless down a substantial 2.5% for the month of January. This puts the total decline from the november 2005 peak through January 2008 at 21.1%.

Here's how the three price tiers have fared since their respective peaks:

As with the data quasi-rodeo, I'm going to be light on verbiage and just update the charts for this month whilst applying a liberal interpretation of the term "extravaganza."

Seems at first like a decline from January, but it really isn't.

Because I'm travelling I am just going to present some charts this month with a minimum of editorializing. Hardly worthy of the "rodeo" sobriquet, I admit, but I am comfortable leaving in the analysis in the Piggs' capable hands (or hooves as the case may be). The frightful month-to-month price declines can be found in the prior entry.

Both median-based price indicators were thoroughly abused last month. Between January and February, the size-adjusted median price declined 5.7 percent for single family homes and 7.7 percent for condos. That's in one month, friends. Brutal. (The vanilla median was even worse, fwiw, which isn't much).

So much for that burgeoning spring rally.

I wrote a little more on last month's action over at voiceofsandiego.org and I will try to put up some more charts here in the next couple days...

I've updated long-term charts of the ratios of San Diego home prices to rents and incomes: