[quote=macromaniac]Barnaby, you are correct! Wages did not inflate but everything else, non electronics, did….so you have to go to 1999 / 2000 pricing to even be close to any bottom and we should overshoot….[/quote]

Wages did inflate, just at a rate short of the real inflation rate (or even for that matter, the fake inflation rate that the government uses that understates inflation), at least nationally -though the gist is correct – historically, housing has inflated at the rate of wage inflation, or very close to it.

Based on average income gain in San Diego circa 2000 (2000 census put SD household income at $47.5K, 2008 was estimated at $66.7K) a gain of about 40% is justifiable from 2000. Based on the available numbers, San Diego had more wage inflation than most areas of the country – possibly a side affect of the skyrocketing standard of living on the west coast due to the housing bubble.

Assuming 2000 was about on the long term trendline (it was close, anyway, and before the hyperinflation of property values kicked in), the recent Case-Shiller numbers have us only about 10% above the long term trendline (I believe the most recent had us at about 155, and as a lagging indicator based on data in the Oct-Dec timeframe, it’s probably in the 140’s now).

Of course, different regions within San Diego have fallen at different rates – the bottom may be close in the harder hit outlying and older areas of the city, while some of the newer and coastal (and until recently “immune”) areas like CV and 4S probably still have quite a ways to fall.

Though, as you mentioned, we will probably overshoot on the way down before we finally revert to the long term trendline. There’s little doubt that unemployment, underemployment, and the other ills that the current economy is causing will also push housing lower before it recovers.