April numbers North County Coastal

[Ozzie]

The Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside markets are diverging as we speak. April numbers shows YOY sales growth and price appreciation in Carlsbad (primariy South Carlsbad)and Encinitas and slower sales and depreciation (on $/square foot sold) in Oceanside.

The first column is 4/2006 and the second is 4/2007.

Carlsbad Sales 91 97
$/sq foot $330 $345

Encinitas Sales 28 44
$/sq foot $405 $422

Oceanside Sales 119 87
$/sq foot $326 $292

The lack of liquidity in the subprime market is likley to continue to depress Oceanside. Business as usual for the more desirable areas.

[sdrealtor]

Ozman,
Statistics dont always tell you what is happening on the streets. In South Carlsbad/Encinitas, I have seen several “like for like” sales that indicate a price decline of approximately 5%. Properties are selling briskly in the area but prices are defintely down from last year.

sdr

[Ozzie]

Well, that may be but I’ve seen like for like sell 5-10% higher as well. I just closed recently and sold it outside the MLS for more than I could have gotten last summer when it was listed for 3 months with no offers at a lower price. Buyers are more optimistic at this point compared to last summer.

[SD Realtor]

Depends on the type of property… Do an MLS search for 2/2 condos in 92009… Not a good sight if you study active/pending ratios. Now if you have a nice detached home then the story is different.

SD Realtor

[rankandfile]

I am trying hard to keep from laughing here. Of course your like for like just happened to be outside the MLS and can’t be tracked.

You think buyers are more optimistic in spring than in the doldrums that were last summer? Complete apples to oranges comparison. Comparing summers with summers and springs with springs would make a little more sense, don’t you think? Why don’t you tell us in your next post that the days on the market is only one day off last year’s peak, George Chamberlin.

[sdrealtor]

I agree that buyers are optimistic but check any of the big tracts in that area like Summerfield, Fieldstone, Village Park, Cantebria, Sandelwood, Cambria/Mendocino, Encinitas Ranch, Villanitas, Rancho Ponderosa, Arroyo Vista, Santa Fe Trails, La Costa Oaks, La Costa off Levante, Greystone on the park etc (did I miss any?) and you will see prices down about 5%.

The only transactions that were 5 to 10% higher were a couple cases of apparent lender fraud by a single agent (Super Janae).

[Bugs]

The NCC areas aren’t going to show as much decline this soon because, like areas such as Scripps and Pt. Loma, a lot of these people consider these to be destination areas.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to predict a trend off a single month’s worth of data. The premise in comparing the medians of any two periods is that we assume that the composition of both datasets are similar. Sometimes thats a reasonable assumption, other times not.

If you look at the first 4 months of 2006 vs. 2007 for all of Carlsbad you’ll see 315 sales in 2006 vs 295 sales in 2007, which comes down to a 7% DECREASE in sales volume. Not equal to the county average, but not exactly stable, either.

If you break the sales data down by price it becomes apparent that the two groups of data have different composition, too. Out of the 315 sales in 2006, 48 of them (15%) were $1,000,000 or higher. But of the 295 sales so far in 2007, 71 sales (24%) are in excess of $1,000,000. Obviously, the higher the number of high-dollar sales, the higher the resulting median of those sales.

Just something to think about.

[Ozzie]

Quick example:

Exact same model in La Costa Valley (3590 sq feet) sold for $1,028,000 last summer and just closed for $1,089,500 about a month ago. No lender fraud, etc. And the lower priced home had nicer upgrades and a much bigger back yard.

Those are facts. Buyers are much more optimistic right now despite all the dooom and gloom of the bloggers. Maybe the stock market rally has something to do with it.

[The-Shoveler]

Nor_LA-Temcu-SD-Guy

Well I think most posters and lookers to this (doom and gloom) blog are buyers and are optimistic we will see a better price (hopefully not to too far off in the future).

we will see .

[DaCounselor]

“Buyers are much more optimistic right now despite all the dooom and gloom of the bloggers.”
_______________________

I would suggest that 99% of the local population spends oh, about 0% of their time surfing housing blogs. I haven’t found a single friend or acquaintance who has even heard of this site (no offense, Rich). The folks I know who have purchased recently or are looking to purchase now are focused on their own financial picture, not what bloggers are “predicting” is going to unfold in the SD housing market.

I think most folks are too busy attending to life’s daily requirements, including making money, to pay any mind to these types of blogs. That being said, I enjoy surfing through here from time to time to see some good stats, some misleading stats, some interesting discussions, some ridiculous screaming sky is falling rhetoric, some good analysis, some poor analysis, a whole lot of chrystal ball gazing and indeed some very sour grapes. It’s a nice diversion, isn’t it? But surely only a fool would allow a miniscule community of faceless prognosticating bloggers to drive their financial decisions. That’s a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

[Bugs]

Yeah, they’re making much better decisions as a result of reading the newspapers that are quoting David Lereah and Leslie Appelton-Young.

[HereWeGo]

I think bugs has it right. The “destination areas” will likely fall last.

[lendingbubblecontinues]

DaCounselor-

Who are you when you are up and dressed, anyway? What type of counsel do you provide? Are we talking social worker, here, or what?

[The-Shoveler]

Nor_LA-Temcu-SD-Guy

Hey DaCounselor,

Tell you what ,

Are you a buyer or a seller ???

(Most here are potential buyers if the price is right I believe).

Do you think the soaring consumer credit in lastest report was a good thing ???

Just curious ..

[SDowner]

I personally know many friends of ours who have bought houses in the last year (2006-2007). In all cases, both spouses earning good income (gross combined more than 150,000), many have bought in 4S ranch. One among them is already holding onto property bought in 2004 with an option ARM. All of them who bought recently have no down payment, 100% financing, int-only option ARMs for 5-7 years.

None of them came to us to discuss about it, so I could not have told them not to do the mortgage mistakes that I have already made, but trying to fix right now. When questioned regarding the housing market, the standard answer is “I do not care. I make enough money to support my payments and will enjoy life as I want to.”

I can understand the attitude if it is a home you plan to settle down for quite some time, but what I cannot understand is getting an ARM int-only option in the current housing situation, with prices coming down and rates going up. (30-year rates still being historically decent)

SDowner

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