merlin, we have overbuilt, people are leaving San Diego at the rate of 40K/year, and 30% of listings are vacant. Don’t worry about demand being strong: we have 8 homes for every buyer!
Steve – we covered the uselessness of the median ad nauseam yesterday. Basically, high end is hot and low end is stalled, skewing distribution of homes sold. Accurate pricing you can get from Case Shiller index or OFHEO.