San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

"Chest waxings."

Beautiful.

Sounds like the tax credit could explain this.

Finnacing is still an issue in the high tier but not in the others.

I think that there needs to be a bit more range on the "high end" I think there could be a few more price breaks in there. I think that places like Santa Luz are getting throttled, absolutely pummelled. Yet I still see plenty of 700k stuff in north county coastal moving okay. Yet those would still be classified as high end wouldn't they?

Bottom line is that high end has a heck of alot of problems and that will get worse and we will see some compression. It just takes so darn long and we are personally frustrated. We see a few homes we like up in a price we cannot afford and they sit...and sit.... and sit... only the turdberries drop but hopefully eventually they will to.

Does anyone know how Santa Luz HOA/MR works?

There are properties with high HOA and low MR; low HOA and high MR; and high HOA and high MR. Why is that?

Also, what the HOA covers seems inconsistent. Some HOA covers water and cable, some doesn't. It is a little confusing.

NC Coastal 700k is different than Santa Luz 700k because of the fees. The additional fees amount to about another 100k+ mortgage.

Can anyone clarify?

I read several comments on this site about "high end" homes still having a lot room to drop compared to the mid and low. Can someone explain the reason for this? If you look at the home price charts going back to 1989, it looks like the low, mid and high tiers have roughly changed the same percentage when compared back to 1989 or even 1999... in other words, the "high end" home have risen less over that period and therefore have fallen less.

I agree that the high price index includes a wide range of homes since it includes everything over ~$420K in many different locations. Does anyone know the best way to get this data for specific areas? I'm guessing its not easy. I've looked at data on $/sq ft on Trulia but I don't recall it breaking it down to different price tiers.

Are you aware of other indices showing more than 3 tiers? I have not looked into it but I would like to see at least five.
By "compression" do you mean price decrease or a unimodal accretion of closing prices?What is a turdberry and how do I avoid them.

It's interesting how much more pronounced the Spring pricing bounce has been in the highest tier than it was in the lowest tier for the last three Springs. Also, the bump in the high tier appears to lead the middle tier by a month or two.

Since CS is a three month rolling average, the dip in September could have actually have been more pronounced than this.

ur - no I am not aware of any other measures with more indices. It just seems to me that there is a substantial diversity of homes above the 600k levels ya know what I mean?

Compression as in high end million dollar homes depreciating to 700-800k homes which then makes the 800k homes I am looking at in certain areas come to the reality that they are not all that and then hopefully dropping thier price because they do not get purchased or realize this is the new reality.

Well avoiding turdberries is a personal issue.

The big question is - are we looking at an inflection point to lower values in the nebulous high end, or is this just a temporary price blip that will head north again soon?

And, only time will tell.

Many on this site will hope they will continue to head south (me being one of them!). And, the justification as to why this southerly southerly direction may continue are many. With the opposite also being true.

Case in point, I'm visiting family in Phoenix now and they are on alert due to the nearly complete downturn in tourism, which feeds the state economy and without which, jobs and companies continue to flounder. With this type of influence on many cities, we may indeed see the upper end continue to sag.

Interesting charts from other markets showing the post-Summer blues:

http://paper-money.blogspot.com/2009/11/...

Just to be clear, according to the CS index the high end is $420K+ in San Diego. These properties easily qualify for the tax credit, conforming and FHA loans. I know that's not anybody else's definition of high-end San Diego, but that's the case for the CS index.

I'm also noticing that the "List" line in the Redfin graph in the lower left corner of this web site turned downward a couple months ago.

I have been watching that chart too. Even thought of doing a post on it... but the thing is, the List price is still so much higher than the Close price line, it might not presage a decline in closing prices (as it presaged the rise). It could just be that among that portion of inventory that is unrealistically priced, some sellers are finally dropping their asking prices more towards market prices.

Rich