San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

I have just put my writeup on May employment up at voiceofsandiego.org. See that article for the words, and see below for the bonus pigg charts.

Before I begin, an administrative note: I am going to take the Econo-Almanac offline this weekend to upgrade the site software. This should help site performance and will result in some improved functionality as well.

OK, onto the rodeo. May was a bit of a weird month as far as the median price per square foot, known somewhat more briefly as the size-adjusted median, was concerned. In specific, the size-adjusted median for single family homes was completely unchanged from April, whereas it was down a brutal 5.9% for the month for condos.

The 1,762 NOTs delivered in San Diego last month was a new record. NODs were down 5% from April, but May was nonetheless the second-highest month on record.

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.