Jazz I understand what you are saying to a point. Sadly, and by far, the majority of sales people in the real estate industry misinform buyers and do indeed put pressure on them to buy homes. There is and will never be any argument to that.

Don’t confuse getting an offer accepted under market price, with desireability of a region as a whole. How many dual income engineers who want to live in an astounding climate, with plenty of jobs and very highly regarded school systems will buy homes in France, Maui, and Santa Barbare? How many? Not many at all. Last I checked Santa Barbara was not known for affordable homes. The point I am making is that San Diego offers a variety of opportunities that are pretty much not found in many places around the world with regards to employment, climate, quality of life, and variety of different areas to live in.

This by no means indicates it is impossible to get a home below market price. It does however indicate that for the same size home in pretty 90% of the USA with the exception of other large coastal cities with a large employment base, you will always pay less. This is the desireability that I am referring to and this is why prices will always be higher. Your 3000 sf home in 4S ranch will always be double or even more then the same home in Dallas. It is not ever going to scale the same.

This does not indicate prices will not go up or down in San Diego, personally I believe the biggest driver of prices will be interest rates and lending conditions. However scale that across the country and San Diego is and always will be higher.