San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

We can't answer that question or else we'll be accused of being a NostraDumbass....

I'll wait until at least the next recession. Sad to say but when people lose jobs, inventory will swell.

After that, I'll watch inventory levels carefully and won't buy as long as inventory is increasing, regardless of where prices and rents are.

lol JWM,

I'll answer: when prices drop 40%. If they don't drop that far before they start going up, but right now things aren't good for prices.

for me personally...when price reach 2001 or 2002 levels I will feel comfortable to get into the market. Regardless of what I can afford I want to be able to see reversion to some kind of historical average or "reversion to mean" as they call it.

I'm with Goldman Sachs on this one, will wait for a 40% from the current median. This implies around 2002 prices, as per Dataquick OC median was somewhere in the low 300s I believe.. 312k or so. I believe the national median would go down to around $150-160k or so and that would make OC double the national average, sounds about right, even though OC does not nearly have double the national income!

If you think about it 312k under 28/36 ratio and 20% down is still VERY expensive, I mean people need to have $63,000 cash to put down and another $10,000 in closing costs and what about additional expenses..emergency fund, moving etc. but then again OC is an expensive place to live.

Who knows, it may go down more to the mid-high 200s if foreclosures skyrocket because of the ARM tsunami ahead of us and financing dries up even more! I'm trying to be conservative with the 40% drop estimate.

I suggest waiting as long as you can manage, or until it becomes quite clear we have hit bottom. One thing to keep in mind is that Real Estate cycles change very slowly. When we do hit bottom, you will have several years to figure out that we're at the bottom and to find a place to buy. Nothing will come shooting back up rapidly. And if it does, stay away!!! It's a bouncing knife!!!

Use these tests to look for to buy a house/condo

1) Is the cost close to current construction costs, if it's a premium hold,
if it's a discount, adjust for condition.

2) Will the unit cash flow to give a cap rate close to Prime.
if it's not above prime, leave it in the bank

3) have costs reverted to the trend adjusted line for case-shiller.
if it's at or below the trend line, it's probably close to a market resistance
point.

4) Are there cover stories in Time Magazine saying "Housing, the bane
of the middle class and "Why renting a trailer is such a good idea"

The time cover is my sign to exit.

Simple, when paying the mortgage principle, interest, taxes and HOA is less then what it costs me to rent.

Easy when the housing price when up 2-4 quarters straight.

<$1million for a 3500sqft home in Carmel Valley at 0% financing for 30years.

A 2001 price.

Capitulation.

Meaning, when the NAR gives up their last pretension of credibility and finally hires the actual Baghdad Bob, rather than these cheap impostors!

depends on

1. whether you are able to use your money, since you hold a lot of cash right now. If you can get very good return from stocks ... probably it is reasonable to stay as renters for a few years.

2. the house price will not go down 30%, not mentioned the rent cost set a limit for how low the house price can be (comparing rent a house to own a similar house, it dones't make sense to compare renting a 1 br apartment to owning a 3-4 br house with private yard)

3. what and where you want to buy. The bottom is different from area to area ...

I'll buy a home when they lend me the money (103%) on stated income like everyone else. - j/k

I probably won't buy unless the market drops like I expect it will. I'm waiting for at least 50% off of peak. If it never does, I'm happy renting and saving the extra cash... or we might move anyways. I feel that it will, especially up here in Temecula area.

There is a lot more out there than socal, and I've been here all my life. A big change could be cool for our family.

if things get really shitty, buying a home might be besides the point...

so i guess, being confident in my income stability, social/political stability and then price stability would be the factors to consider in my mind.

Here's my proxy ...
I'm looking for 3/2 SFRs in bread-and-butter areas for rental purposes to be priced at about zero cash flow with 20% down before I even start tracking seriously. Bread-and-butter SFRs would be in areas like Clairemont, Serra Mesa, Kearny Mesa. If things go far enough down, then maybe even Point Loma will hit zero cash flow and the others areas slightly positive. I recently ran the numbers for some low-end Clairemont houses, they were still 15-20% too high for zero cash flow.

Assuming rates and rents are about where they are today, I'll start looking to buy at another -15%. If long-rates go up 1%, I'd need to see another -25% or so. If long-rates go down 1%, it might make sense 5-10% below today's prices. If rents drop, I would need prices to drop proportionally.

Come on you guys - have you learned nothing from this web page?

The time to buy a house is when the leading indicators and other fundamentals start to show that prices have some strong upward pressure on them.

I mean - why even bother putting a stake in the ground now and saying things like "I'm waiting until prices drop 40%" or "I'll buy when we get to 2002 prices" or "I'm waiting until 2010" when you really have no idea how far it will go or how long it will take.

Every month, look at the numbers - months of inventory, sales growth, forclosure trends, the availability of credit, interest rates, the cost of rent vs, wages (especially your own), the money you have saved for a down payment - and decide on a month-to-month basis if this is the month to buy.

Right now I can say that Nov 2007 isn't the month for me to buy.

In the meantime, save, save, save so you have the down payment that you will need in order to qualify for a loan in the tight (but loosening) credit market that you will encounter when the time to buy is right.

Well said, Sdduuuuude.

One of my favorite indicators is the the Household Debt Service and Financial Obligations Ratios put out quarterly by the Federal Reserve Board. It shows the ratio of debt payments to disposable personal income.

Over time this tends to show the consumer's sentiment towards debt. Here on the West Coast where real estate is very debt driven (since most of us have to take out loans to purchase a home) this ratio looks to be at least coincident with housing booms and busts, and sometimes leads by a few years.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h...

I keep my eye on the DSR. The federal gov't added renter and homeowner columns a few years ago that I find less than helpful.

Right now I can say that Nov 2007 isn't the month for me to buy.

At some point everyone will be saying this. When that happens, it is time to buy.

I'm interested to see what the 'bifurcation' study throws out before deciding anything definite. If price declines are going to bite into the higher end ($670K+), I'll wait for 2-3 years and bargain hunt, based on what I feel prices should be, using historical averages. If they hold out I will possibly leave California because I don't value it (or anywhere) enough to pay these prices.

good job sdduuude (how do you remember the number of U's when you login by the way)

some sense has been restored in this recycled thread

QW, I agree with you. If prices don't decline enough (which I think they will) my wife and I will probably move also. We don't want to be life renters

2. the house price will not go down 30%, not mentioned the rent cost set a limit for how low the house price can be (comparing rent a house to own a similar house, it dones't make sense to compare renting a 1 br apartment to owning a 3-4 br house with private yard)

Of course it will go down but not 30%, perhaps more like 40-50%.

Cost of ownership is not just the mortgage payment! What about property taxes, HOA, maintainence/repairs, insurance. All those are absent in rents. If you figure in the whole amount of owning it is now over double that of renting an equivalent place.

For me, if I hadn't already bought and I was sitting on the sidelines, at this point, given all the lessons I've learned as a buyer who bought during the peek and now can't sell my home....

I would only buy again if the prices drop to a level where:

a) The payment doesn't exceed 30-40% of my monthly take home pay.

b) The house I can buy for that amount is in the neighborhood I want to call home, and if the kind of home that I can live in until retirement.

c) Rent is equal to or greater then my housing payment will be. Remember the good old days when they used to say "Why throw your money away on rent when you can own for less?" LOL

When conditions are met, I'll buy again....

If you figure in the whole amount of owning it is now over double that of renting an equivalent place.

It was generally true that renting was about half of "owning" in 2005. However, with home prices down 15-25% in many areas and rents having gone up at least 5% in the past two years you need to update your pat phrase. It is no longer half in many places. For places that I follow it now costs about 2/3 to 3/4 as much to rent as to "own".

For places that I follow it now costs about 2/3 to 3/4 as much to rent as to "own".

No, it doesn't, not here in Irvine at least. You can rent a 3 bedroom, 1700sqft house for $2400/mo. That same house will cost $650,000 to buy. PITI+HOA+Maintainance+Mello Roost will at least be $7000/mo. with current jumbo rates and zero down, and that is if you can EVEN get a loan for the full amount.

IMO, by following this site and taking in all the graphs, updates, discussions etc., you can get a fairly clear picture of where the market actually is at any given moment in time, and you can also project forward with some clarity, although not certainty. By doing this, you are already ahead of the 99% of people who merely read the news and fall for the propaganda. At some point, figures like notices of default, foreclosures, monthly price and sales declines, rent/own ratios etc. will start to look more appealing, or even flat. May also need to see signs that our current state of credit and housing imposed stress on the economy has passed. If that 700k home that is now 600k goes down to 450k and I sense the market has stabilized, I'd probably buy.

No, it doesn't, not here in Irvine at least.
Good point. I was interpreting from a San Diego perspective.
Irvine appears to be a bit behind SD in the current cycle.