San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Real short notice for a short (10 minute) radio segment -- I will be on KOGO AM 600 tomorrow starting, they tell me, at 7:37AM. Whether I'm coherent at that hour is another question.

I upgraded the site software to get some security patches in. If anyone sees anything squirrely, please let me know at rich [at] piggington [dot] com.

I also took another swipe at installing private message functionality. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but as far as I can tell from my quick tests they finally got it working. As you might expect from the name, this module allows people to send private messages to other piggs without having to share email addresses or identities.

So feel free to give it a whirl and let me know if you run into any problems. You have to create a login, of course... after you log in the module can be accessed via the "Private messages" link in the left navigation.

I will be appearing on the voiceofsandiego.org radio show this Sunday, 12 noon, on AM 600 KOGO. Since we recorded the segment today, I already know that bagging on the CA Association of Realtors will be one of the topics du jour -- always a good time! An archive of the show should be put up here late Sunday or thereabouts.

The site is undergoing a migration to a new server and will be in "read only" mode while the process is underway to ensure no data is lost. The site may at some point go down altogether as I use the opportunity to make some software upgrades. Thanks for your patience.

Update: OK, we're back online... details after the jump for those interested.

This weekend I upgraded piggington.com to use the latest version of Drupal, an open source content management system that is very powerful but, unfortunately, not very easy to upgrade. (Which explains why I let myself get two major releases behind).

The performance of the site should be improved, but much more for authenticated users than anonymous users, as the prior version had only cached content for anonymous users. Additional performance improvements will be made later this week as a kindly expert pigg has offered to help me optimize my database and web server configuration. In the meantime, hopefully the Drupal upgrade is a good first step.

This upgrade comes with some new features -- I am probably forgetting some but here is at least a partial list:

I am going to be making some changes/upgrades to the site throughout the week as I try to improve site performance. I may also upgrade to the latest version of the Drupal, the content management system I use, so we may end up with some improved features as well. Thanks for your patience as I intermittently take the site offline.

Update: A couple quick things I tried didn't work. I'm going to have to dive deeper but unfortunately I will not have a chance to work on this until the weekend. I am aware that site performance has really gotten quite bad lately and I apologize -- thanks for your patience until I am able to hopefully deal with it this weekend.

This Wednesday I will be embarking on a two-week trip out of the country. (To Uruguay, for those curious, where my father grew up and where his extended family still resides). I am going to update some long-term charts before I go, and once down there I will try to put up the occasional article, but posting will likely be light for a while.

Update: The researchers have already closed the survey due to the “overwhelming response” they apparently got – thanks to all who participated.
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USC is performing a study on the credibility of blogs vs. the mainstream media when it comes to the Southern California real estate market. If you have an opinion on the topic, please help out the folks performing the study by taking their very brief survey. Thanks!

I installed a new caching mechanism yesterday to improve site performance. As a result, some authenticated users keep being shown the "anonymous" pages as if they were not logged in. If this is happening to you, please log out by clicking this link and then log back in again. That should address the problem.

Hi everyone -- if anyone is looking for info on the fires, there are a couple active forum threads on the topic:

• http://piggington.com/hope_you_are_all_safe
• http://piggington.com/poway_and_rb_ordered_evacuated

Jim the Realtor is posting updates, and on his site I learned of another good source with lots of photos and maps. The UT has been blogging about it but their server seems to be having trouble with the loads.

Finally, I'm not sure how up to date or accurate they are, but many people have been tracking fires and evacuations at Google Maps -- here is a really good example as of 3PM (click the image to jump to the map itself):

Good luck to everyone.

Good news, everyone!

(The above should be read in the voice of Professor Farnsworth -- a tutorial video is available if you need help).

Longtime Piggs or those who've read the FAQ list know that due to my affiliation with the securities industry, all site content had to undergo a compliance review before I could post it. This made frequent postings and especially forum participation fairly impractical.

Now, however, we've streamlined the process in a way that should allow me to post more frequently and even to participate in the forums. I still need to steer clear of discussing securities or investing (which are subject to the older, more painful review process), but for real estate, mortgage, and economic topics, I will have a lot more flexibility.

Stand by for more alleged content.

I will be appearing on NPR’s These Days at 10AM. The segment will likely be archived here.

Last week I was on a Bay Area NPR show called The Forum with a few other panelists, including DataQuick's John Karevoll, to discuss the surge in California foreclosures. An archive is available here if anyone wants to listen. I don't say a whole lot until about 25 or 26 minutes in, but I recall going off on a pretty long rant at that point and then getting a lot more airtime in the latter half of the program.

Hopefully I won't visit upon The Forum the same fate that I apparently did Full Focus...

I make a brief appearance in a recent LA Times article about the skyrocketing rate of California foreclosures.

The author of the article, David Streitfeld, is IMHO the best mainstream journalist on the housing beat. He understood what was happening early on and wasn't afraid to write candidly about it. (I'm not just saying that because he quoted me, though it sure doesn't hurt -- ha!). I recommend reading the entire piece if you get a chance.

I will be appearing on KPBS' Full Focus on Monday the 23rd at 6:30 PM and 11:00 PM. The segments are usually posted on the Full Focus website as well.

The topic this time is "an update on the real estate market" -- that's all I know for now!