San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

Congrats sd_matt!

The LM village is a very charming and walkable area to live in or around!

IIRC, the vast majority of the "granny flats" in that area are considered "grandfathered-in" by the city council and are legal rentals. Some even have separate addresses than the main house and some have a "Certificate of Non-Conforming Use" filed on the property.

Congratulations also on "inheriting" a good (longtime?) tenant!

Way to go man. Sounds great, especially if you keep use of the garage. Thumbs up

Thanks all.

I'm sharing the garage 50/50. Before buying I looked up properties with attachments. Mine has what is called an "accessory dwelling unit". I have a printout of the description. Whatever that is it allows me to have a complete unit, kitchen and all.

Congrats Matt

We too bought, about 1 and a half years ago.

All the best with your new place.

Congratulations, sdmatt!!! :)

Sounds like a good justification as far as rents go. Not that they can't drop, too, it's just that being short assets (including housing) in any way is a very dangerous place to be with all the central banks around the world doing their darndest to keep asset prices high.

Houses with rental units are going to be in higher and higher demand going forward, IMHO. Nice job on your housing choice!

Definitely take advantage of being an owner occupant and lock in the best long term financing you can get. Someday you may not want to live there anymore but with a mortgage in 3's and rents rising with inflation over time it should work out really well for you.

Low interest rates are great for sellers and those refinancing.

For buyers not so much. They're already baked into the demand and the price. But they make great talking points for realtors.

Very true. When a particular incentive is available to all potential buyers -- like mortgage interest rates being available to all qualified buyers -- prices will go up to counter any benefit. Not only that, but prices will likely increase beyond that because of the increased demand that will form as more people *think* they are getting a better deal because of the incentive.

Nice threadjack, my comment was directed at someone who already made the irreversible decision to buy.

Ummmm....interest rates have been dropping the past few years along with prices. Guess who's been crowing about that the whole time and is now talking out of both sides of her mouth.

Get ready for the excuses as to why that happened in her sterile laboratory theoretical world. Sorry CAR life doesnt happen in vacuum. The perfectly rational things that you think should happen dont always.

life is messy and non vacuum like. organic things can be kind of grossand slimy.

but there is great beauty in it.

THE SOUND OF A WILD SNAIL EATING.

great little nonfiction book about a very sick woman who finds great companionship with a snail. maybe the best book i have ever read.

as for housing, I want to be interested, but it seems like a boring period right now. not that nothing strange is going to happen, but right now, seems dull. more interested int he wild snail...which is not to say im not congratualting you on your purchase. you'll be ok... have fun...life is short...

IMHO, prices would have been dropping further and faster without those interest rate drops. Nothing incongruous about my stance at all.

You said when incentives like low interest rates are available to all qualified buyers prices will go up to counter that. Prices fell all over the country amidst falling interest rates. Whether they would have dropped further or faster is a matter of opinion and not direction. You were wrong. No two ways about it

CA Renter is forgetting that the interest-rate incentive is only available to those who either have:
(a) rock-steady credit, a very steady income, and a moderate down payment available
(b) a much larger amount of cash in order to create a steady income using that cash, and then cash-out refi

Also at some point prices will start going up again while rates are rising too. Rates will rise because the economy is booming again. When the economy booms people have more money and feel more confident. They buy more houses and prices rise. This laboratory thinking of CARs is flawed in so many ways. It's far too simplistic

Nonsense. If someone has a parachute they will have a softer landing than someone without one.

The interest rates in Spain, Greece, etc. were rising because their economies were booming?

...............

The reason prices were rising in the face of rising interest rates during the 1970s and 1980s was because it coincided with the huge influx of women in the workforce. This provided every household with a (sometimes significant) increase in purchasing power. As with low interest rates and other incentives, credits, or subsidies, when large groups gain purchasing power, it is sellers who benefit from it in the form of higher prices; buyers end up either maintaining or losing purchasing power on a relative basis.

Additionally, during the 70s and 80s, unions were stronger than they are today and people were able to demand raises at the time. Those days are over now.

I see no impetus for higher housing prices in the face of higher interest rates unless our politicians decide to crawl out of the pockets of their corporate/capitalist contributors and change our tax and trade policies so that jobs can come back from overseas.

And prior to the Women's Liberation movement the huge influx of women in the workforce was inconceivable.

Thank you for proving my point and refuting your own. Shit happens that we "see no impetus for". In the 1970's who would have forseen legions of "Super Enginerds" with incomes between $100 and 200K proliferating SD? Whats next....we will just have to wait and see. In the absence of anything else, all it would take is time and inflation.

An awful lot of people are pinning their hopes on time and inflation. Let's hope they are not putting all their eggs in one basket.

Awesome Matt, I grew up in La Mesa and I think it is charming. Good for you.

No, it was not inconceivable at all. It was something many people had been working toward for a long, long time.

That's right I forgot you were active in the women's liberation movement in the 1940's

???

Put down the wine, sdr.

Of course the women's rights movements had its roots decades earlier but 20 years before it happened no one had any idea of the extent to which it would happen. You are commenting on social norms in periods well before you were born and just making shit up again.

Haven't had a glass of wine in 3 days. Too busy this week to slow down. Got a 3 day party to throw for 150 guests this coming weekend

What am I making up? Never said I was around in the 1940s, so not sure where you got that. FWIW, even though I wasn't around then, I certainly know plenty of women who were, and have heard some cringe-worthy stories regarding those times.

The Women's Movement is well documented, and there is a long history of women trying to get into the paid workforce -- many of whom were trying to get out of horribly abusive marriages but were stuck for financial reasons. Not sure why you think it's necessary for someone to be there to know about this topic.

HA!! Sorry I have to laugh a little.
I was a working single during those dark days of double digit inflation, 1970's till 1990.
I tell you 10% raise was routine in the 70's in the 80's I was getting 20-25% raises.
Did not take a second income to do that.
Cars bought were twice the price 2-3 years later for the same model (before you finished paying them off even), my payments felt like they melted away.
Not saying it would have not been tougher raising a family, but if you were buying on credit, inflation worked for you a lot of times in those days.

Oh,

I was never unemployed from 1976 till 2000.

Those I knew who were, well they were kind of, well let’s say they were high flying beach bums for the most part, I don't remember them crying on my shoulder.
But then again this was SoCal, and not the mid-west.

The point is you have a very small and closed view of the world. You latch onto small points trying to justify it instead of opening your mind to the possibilities.

Things change over time far beyond what people can imagine. Think about it this way. When I was 13 my favorite show was Star Trek. I loved all the amazing technology predicted for centuries in the future. One generation later, some of the futuristic technology used in Star Trek has already been surpassed by the iPhone in my 13 year old son's pocket. That technology was inconceivable one generation ago. Things change. Open your eyes and your mind.

CAR does have a point about the unions being stronger in the 70's and 80's, but also the Gov was much more willing to raise minimum wage back then as well.

And people were used to inflation, they expected it.

Now everyone goes through the moon if Costco jeans were to go up 50 cents a pair.

By the way Levi’s were about $16.00 a pair back in the late 70's, cereal was about the same price as it is now.

Oh, and inflation (wages) they were tied to the price to (BUY) a house, not rent it.

Once again, you're making assumptions and proclamations about me which aren't true. Just because you and I disagree, it doesn't mean I have a "small and closed" view of the world. In the case of California real estate, I've been around it a whole lot longer than you have, and have witnessed RE cycles that you haven't seen. You've only been practicing RE in CA during one of the most extreme upswings (since 1997). You've only seen a manipulated market. You have yet to see what a "normal" market is like here.

Stop trying to make assuptions about people you know nothing about. You've made multiple claims about me that are completely untrue. You implied that I've not traveled, etc., making stupid comments about "resorts don't count," etc. even though I've never been in a resort in other countries. No, I've *lived* overseas as a child (Asia), and have spent a fairly significant amount of time in Europe because my family lives there. Made the usual trips to Mexico, etc. before things got bad, traveled across the states, etc. So, no, I've not just been sitting in a 100-mile radius all my life like you've claimed.

Stop making stuff up about other people while trying to imply that you know more about them than you actually do. I'm not the only one you do this to, BTW.

Five years ago you were among the most vocal that the problem was too vast for the government to manipulate its way through. You said over and over there was NO way they could. They have and even though we aren't done yet it's time to admit you didn't believe they could do what they have done. Not saying its right just that they did it.

Your comments consistently show a small and closed point of view. It is what is.

Btw I have been in SAn Diego since 1986 with the exception of a few years here and there. We're there no normal markets here in the last 26 years?