If you count births and illegals, population growth is positive, but net domestic migration out of San Diego is negative since 2001. So we’ve got births and illegal aliens contributing to population gain, neither of which is helping the housing market.

San Diego is dependent on the first time buyer to start the chain of sales, and I don’t see babies or illegals helping in that regard. Educated adults are leaving, and that is bad for our economy. Eventually, after prices fall in half, people will come back.

By the way, I think it’s entirely possible that we have a 10 – 15 year housing price drop like Japan just experienced. Japan’s prices had gone up even more than ours, and nobody thought they could ever drop. Well, they did. At one point, Japan’s Imperial Gardens property was worth more than all of California! Then prices plummeted by 80%!