patient renter has a point about economic downturn having a pretty profound impact on rents. However, I think that the problem with much of this conversation is that it is talking about markets that are hard to pin down. “San Diego County” functions to some extent like the “US” as a housing market. By that I mean that people do not say that they want to live in the county or the US, they say that they want to live in a particular neighborhood of a particular city. While this may be slightly less true in rents than in resale, the underlying logic still holds. Most people are not indifferent to the choice between La Jolla and Southeast. The article Nostradamus cited unfortunately does not go into enough detail about micro-markets.
As far as what we I am seeing in my business:
Most of the central SD area (downtown, Hillcrest, Northpark, Normal Heights, City HEights, South Park) appears to be rising in price but slowly. This is anecdotal so there may be stats that contraindicate but it seems pretty solid and widespread. I speculate that this may have something to do with higher demand for short commutes. Also, there has been a LOT of professional murmurings that Chula Vista’s high foreclosure rate is driving rents significantly higher (again anecdotal). This, if true, would be consonant with my wife’s (who is a teacher in Chula) description of noticeable increase in enrollment in her, predominantly rental, area. In other words people are staying in the general submarket but moving to more rental-heavy sections. I attended an REDC auction a few months ago. Every investor I met (which constituted most of people I met) were interested in acquiring rentals in Chula.
