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Spd, income growth rate is meaningless given that it excludes growth in wealth as well as wealth transferred from other parts of the world.

Health care and college tuition prices have gone up faster than income growth for about 40 years straight.

Like college, housing is in part a positional good and an investment. San Diego is in the Ivy League of desirable places to live, one of the lowest crime, lowest property tax, best weather and lowest pollution major cities.

The global rich, especially from Asia, will continue to want to either live here or, like Bill Gates, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, at least have a vacation home or three here.

We have underperformed the other major west coast markets and are an increasingly good value. We also have a good critical mass of Asian-Americans, long term immigrants, and cosmopolitan culture that will make additional Asian investors feel welcome.

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I am always surprised at the asking rents on these new complexes. $1765 for a studio?

On the other hand, the “big” growth in apartments projected for 2017 is equal to 0.3% of the housing stock.

I bet the number of new AirBNB units removed from the long term rental supply will actually exceed 3,000.

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I like my water pik, it is relaxing. Get one with a big tank.

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It will not sell for anywhere near that price.

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Rates can go to zero or below like they have in Japan and most of Western Europe.

Not sure why those Europeans buy their 0% or negative bonds anyway, US bonds would have paid more and given them a boost in their own currency as the dollar soared.

I allocated a decent chunck of money to western European stocks. They have underperformed US stocks but still went up and paid large divideds.

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When the GOP has control of the presidency and congress, it has always been a let the good times roll monetary and fiscal policy. Big tax cuts, big spending, combined with low interest rate policy. They feed each other since the rich who get most of the tax cut end up saving a large part of it, which further reduces rates.

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Interest rates have barely increased and their volatility has been between a gradually falling range.

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It takes 3 minutes on the phone with your agent to convert HO Ins to a rental policy and it does not cost that much more.

The best way to protect yourself is to ask for first and last months rent at closing.

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In my experience Chinese made products are of the lowest quality, with Chinese brand Chinese products at the bottom. Oftentimes the prices are low enough it does not matter.

When I was in Asia Chinese scooters were less than half the price of Japanese and Korean made ones and treated as disposable junk that might last 80,000km if you were lucky.

Japanese and Korean brands worked their way up to better reputations over time, but I do not see any signs of Chinese brands doing the same. It only took 10-15 years for Toyota and Honda to establish a good US reputation. China has been mass exporting to the USA for about 25 years with no such brands or anything close.

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Another trend favoring SFH especially is the growing work from home share. Running a home business takes a lot of space, and on top of that, if you spend your days and nights both at home, you will care more about its size and quality.

I noticed a fair number of posters here seem to work partly or entirely from home offices.

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I missed out partly because I sold stocks to fund a downpayment on a property. However, I also sold an equal amount of bonds which fell after the election so it evened out. I have not added back any stocks but I’ve been buying back bond funds, especially taxable muni CEFs which are back to yielding about 7%. (GBAB and BBN)

Also tech stocks underperformed and bank stocks overperformed so probably not too great a rally for the average California investor. I don’t have any US bank stocks, but I got lucky and timed the bottom in DB and HSBC.

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I think in the medium to long run that SFH will outperform multifamily in San Diego.

1. The supply of SFH only goes down outside of distant suburbs as they are slowly replaced with commercial and multifamily.

2. Income inequality continues to grow, so the people with buying power will increasingly be people who prefer SFH.

Of course I am only talking about appreciation, and MF could appreciate less and still outperform because of better cash flow.

Some counter trends favoring MF are Asian buyers are growing in importance and care less about private yards than middle America transplants that historically fueled SD housing demand, as well as the trend toward older and smaller household size. This also favors two bedroom SF targeting small households.

A point favoring SFH is that you can resell to both a future owner occupant or fellow investor, but converting a MF complex to condos is a very expensive process that sometimes may not be permitted at all, so your resale market is only going to be investors.

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I loved sim city when I was a kid. The game is set up so you have no incentive to zone low density, not too much like the real world where it would get you thrown out of office to zone everything high density.

China needs to build like crazy as it is in the process of moving a billion peasants into urban areas. Prices are also much more out of whack than any other large economy compared to either rents or income. Lots of condos sell for 50x annual rent or more.

That is another reason in addition to freedom, stability and pollution to get out of China. Urban condos are priced higher than in major west coast cities but incomes are still a fraction of US incomes.

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A bunch of 50 floor towers in mission valley sounds like a dystopian nightmare. It isn’t walkable, it is a heat and pollution sink, no large public parks, and traffic is already very bad. Better to just keep expanding Downtown and La Jolla.

I like the idea of a few 10 floor buildings next to every new trolley stop however.

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Co-ops often can’t be purchased as investments and have 50% down payment requirements so are not really comparable.

NYC’s bubble peak Case Schiller was 218 and San Diego’s was 251.

SF, Portland, and Seattle are all well above their bubble peaks while we are still about 10% below.

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