The price compression Bugs describes won’t show up in the median price by zip codes because as people buy the higher end houses, the median will hold or even increase. That’s what I think is happening in Escondido, Poway and Golden Hill (as mentioned the article). Say that some Poway houses that used to be $1 million resell for $600k. Those houses would actually cause the median to increase! The 40% drop would be invisible to the people who solely look at the stats and would not be reported in the press. If you’re a buyer, you have to look sale price history of individual houses.
In my mind, if you can buy a nice house in Del Mar for $1.3 million, why would you even consider similarly priced houses in less desirable Poway, Scripps Ranch or Carlsbad?
I expect the million dollar suburban tract houses to drop like a rock. Anyone wants a bargain McMansion to match that bargain SUV?
