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(former)FormerSanDiegan

Nice follow-up. I thought
Nice follow-up. I thought some of the initial comments to your previous post were a bit overboard as you can tell by my comments there.
At least the 2005 numbers from BLS fall between the other two sources (When in doubt take the average).

powayseller
17 years ago

Bob Casagrand keep saying,
Bob Casagrand keep saying, over and over, that if we continue having a population decline, all bets are off on how low housing will go. He said we used to have 50K people per year moving here, increasing demand for homes. As potential buyers leave our city, the months supply will keep rising. So while I agree that prices will fall even if population stays steady, price drops will be much greater if population declines, at least according to Bob.

That’s because we are very dependent on the first time home buyer in San Diego, and the housing market then is sustained by the ripple effect of move up buyers. Once the chain is broken, the rest of the chain is dead. So if the $500K home seller leaves San Diego, he will not buy the $750K home, thus breaking the chain of 2 futher sales ($750K house, $1.2 mil house). So because of the ripple effect of home buying, population decline does matter.

However, prices would have to drop even if population is steady. I think that a negative population growth just makes the price drops steeper, i.e. the declines happen over a shorter time (steeper slope).

powayseller
17 years ago

Yes, employment numbers have
Yes, employment numbers have increased, but that doesn’t mean that population has increased. If employment increases at the same rate as population, then we would have steady unemployment. Insted, the SD unemployment rate is falling, and is now at 3.9%, down from 4.1% in August 2006, by adding 3600 jobs in one month. This still supports the thesis that population is falling, because rising employment and lower population would result in lower unemployment rate.

The labor market seems especially tight the last 6 months. I don’t ever recall seeing so many “Hiring” signs. The Subway on Poway Road has a huge Hiring banner flying outside off its sign since several weeks, Mission Federal in Poway has a Hiring sign on its front door, various carpet cleaners and Sears electronics van have Hiring signs on their vans, and the electronics engineer from the gym said he gets calls every day from headhunters. I could go on and on… When I talk with people, I hear stories of people moving away. Even piggington has a group of folks who left San Diego and wish to return. Bob C. tells me that in his real estate dealings, he is faced with people leaving. Sellers are selling so they can leave, and many listings are vacant.

Last, we’ve seen what a mess the government makes of their statistics. The CPI is a convenient measure to understate inflation so cost of living adjustments are less than they should be. Commerce Dept. counts new home sales but not cancellations, overstating the number of sales by 20-30%. BLS overstated auto production, making .9% GDP into 1.6% GDP. It’s not difficult to believe that similar mistakes were made for population changes.

Addendum:

BLS gets their population info from a household survey done for them by Census.

The San Diego County data from the State of California Economic Development Department shows a reduction in our labor force by 600 people from August to September 2006. It is possible that population is growing by births, and we have a simultaneous decrease in people who would be in the labor force and buying homes. So the out migration could be overcome by the natural births.

Mexico Resident
17 years ago
Reply to  powayseller

Unless you assume that the
Unless you assume that the numbers are in error, most likely the population increased through 2005. But, the trend is definitely downward.

powayseller
17 years ago

From Aug 06 to Sept 06, we
From Aug 06 to Sept 06, we added 4000 jobs but lost a few hundred people, according to Labor Market Info, State of CA. So unemployment keeps getting lower and lower. Most hiring was in music and book retailers, colleges and universities, and government.

Mexico Resident
17 years ago
Reply to  powayseller

I would add anecdotally that
I would add anecdotally that in technology related industries (excluding biotech of which I know little) San Diego seems to be a shadow of what it once was. Manufacturing is dwindling (lots has gone to China) and design work has gone down since the dot com bust. I wonder if in a few years we see more and more just high end defense contractors.