The “Bay Area” is a 9 count them NINE county metropolitan area. You think you have variety in San Diego county? Microclimates? Commute patterns that vary from 15 minutes to 3+ hours? Well, they are here as well, in spades.
What we do NOT have up here is the amount of new homes being built that you have down there. There simply is NOT the choice in many areas of a new builder model competing with the existing housing stock. So that particular pressure chasing prices down is significantly less than what you have in say, Temecula.
In nice suburbs with attractive commute times and excellent public schools, prices have held up well. In the outlying areas with lots of subprime loans blowing up and foreclosures rising, well, Piggingtonians can figure out what’s happening there.
Our salaries are a LOT higher up here than in San Diego. And yes, the cheaper dollar has a lot of foreign buyers picking up that little pied-a-terre in SOMA or Russian Hill with their newly valuable rupees or Loonies or Euros.
My observations of the local markets is that they are bi-and trifurcating. Low end condos going down. Entry level SFRs in bad neighborhoods dead as doornails. In good neighborhoods, holding their own or increasing. Luxury homes up up up. McMansions? Lol.
Oh, and by the way? They are TRACT homes not track homes. Track homes are where sprinters and hurdlers live.
