I don’t think SD County is moving as quickly into this downtrend as Riverside County, nor do I think it will bottom out as hard.
The areas in SD County that peaked the earliest did so in the Summer of 2005 or thereabouts. The majority of the market segments peaked at various times over the next 12 months after that. Only a few market segments peaked after Summer of 2006, although that wouldn’t have been apparent by looking at the new home sales because of the concessions the developers were giving away so they could maintain the illusion of a stable price structure.
So all in all, I guess you could say that in SD County, retraction to mid-2004 pricing could probably be stretched to fit the definition of the soft landing the permabulls were wishing for when their vaunted New Paradigm theory proved itself to be unfounded. We’re still at or below a -15% off peak pricing range in a lot of market segments. The bottom end seems to be getting it worse right now, but losses in excess of ~15% haven’t spread throughout the middle and upper pricing ranges as yet.
Now by the time we get to the beginning of 2003 pricing we’ll be talking about some epic corrections. But that’s still a long ways off at this point.
I truly think that most buyers in 2007 are going to (privately) kick themselves by the time 2009 rolls around.
