lets limit this to SD as talking about CA is like talking about 10 states not one with its massive size and population. SD is doing great. I drive around and all I see are massive cranes and construction projects going on in key places. Our economy is thriving and growing in leaps and bounds in the industries of today and tomorrow. Unlike Saint George our job growth is not simply building homes. Most of the good spots here are near or completely built out.
When they build something like this ( https://www.sheahomes.com/new-homes/california/san-diego-area/encinitas/fox-point-farms/ ) around here they have several thousand people on a list hoping to buy one of 250 homes. My neighborhood of roughly 1000 homes should have had 15 to 20 closed sales the first 4 months of this year and we’ve had 4. People are staying put and countywide new listings are running around 50% of last year which was already a very low number.
Its expensive here and affordability is an issue as it is everywhere in the country including SG. There are a lot less buyers here and everywhere. But here there are even less sellers. Hopefully values will stagnate for several years . I expect most of any correction ahead to be the erosion of real values over time with little nominal downside in sight. Places like Saint George wont fare so well
The people moving out are like a loudmouth neighbor of mine. He has been telling me how much money he has for the last two decades. He complains about CA the same ways as you. He just sold the house he paid $500K for about $2.5M. He’ll be passing your direction on his way to the northwest. I saw him last week packing for his move. I laughed in his face because he was packing everything himself and loading up a U-Haul. I said arent you a little old for that? Suddenly his tune changed and he said Im not rich like you. I said where did all the money go bigshot? Of course Ive known for years he’s been raiding the equity on his house to finance the lifestyle he never really could afford. I checked and he owed about $2M on it. I sure hope he has several hundred thousand to pay the taxable capital gains tax on that puppy. I expect he’ll inflate his tax basis with improvements he never made on the house to avoid paying what he owes
The people coming in are like my other neighbors that replaced another guy like him 2 years ago. Nice well educated, down to earth humble couple with great jobs from an even higher cost area. Poor pretenders out. Real deal quality people in. Lather rinse repeat
