San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Median prices are not a good indicator of price levels. We've had this discussion many times before, Bob.

Case Shiller indexes, average/median price per square foot per zip code, etc are better indicators. Our own esmith created a case shiller type index by zip code, and for groups of zip codes, I believe.

Anyway, the median price is more of an indication of how many transactions are occurring in the lower end tier of the market versus the upper end. Clearly the lower end is a lot more active right now, dragging the median price down more than the price of the typical home has come down.

^^^^^^
what he said.

But given that, yeah, the trend is down.

This is just one form of data, but as PadreBrian stated, the trend is down, which makes it newsworthy. What is equally important from Data Quick is the fact that in the mid/upper ranges, sales continue to be very weak.

Since we all know the trend is down for years now, I hardly think this is news worth. Since most of us on here are waiting to buy, what would be news worthy would be the sign of the bottom. Obviously there will be many bottom, not just 2, depending on the zip code and housing type you're looking for. So, I'll be looking forward to when we'll get many of those threads on here. We're the first group to call the top, so I suspect we'll be the first group to call the bottom.

Actually, had you read the details, the trend was flat from January through March, followed by a down trend in April. Thats why its newsworthy. But its a free country, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

Flat in a the spring season is nothing to write home about. It was flat if not up in 2008 as well and we all know how the rest of the year turned out. 3 months does not make a trend. When I say trend, I mean what has been going on for the last 2 years.

AN - good point. Flat in the Spring is not exactly the most bullish signal.

Since about 2/3 of sales in the SoCal area are LA, OC, and Riverside County, these numbers are probably driven more by those markets.

In fact this report shows San Diego up 5 K month-to-month.

Regardless, the fluctuation in month-to-month median prices of a couple percent is probably below the noise level of the measurement. Up or down 5 K should be considered essentially flat.

Headline news that SoCAL is down in April or headline news that San Diego was up in April or both sensational.

I wish you are right.

Since I've read The Bubble Primer in 2005 I became an adamant believer in housing bubble burst. I knew the prices are going down a lot.

Now it's a different story though, I am not so sure about the future of the housing market anymore. Granted, the current trend is still down. But for how long? Have you seen a convincing metric that can predict bottom(s) with at least 10% accuracy? A metric, mind you, that should be based on (macro) fundamentals, yet make a quantitative prediction on an extremely local matter? Do you even believe it's mathematically possible?

Sigh.

Dude, if its causing you such stress, may I suggest you ignore threads like this in the future ?