If you’re currently renting a house in San Diego, you may be better off by continuing to rent for a couple of years. But if you’ve been renting for several years, you have really missed out on some big dollars.
Let’s say you owned or bought a house in 2001 that was worth $500,000, and it appreciated by 15% per year from 2001 to 2005. (We know that many areas in San Diego did much better than 15% per year.) Your property would now be worth about $875,000. If the property declines in value by 25% between 2005 and 2008, it would still be worth about $650,000. Personally, I don’t think that most properties will lose a full 25%.
