The last two years caught many of us off guard, and not just because of the pandemic. They also ushered in the hottest housing market on record. Low mortgage rates paired with a supply shortage drove home prices up nationally by nearly 19% in 2021.
Continue reading Rising Mortgage Rates, Short Supply: The State of Real Estate in 2022
Home prices skyrocketed in San Diego and the rest of the country last year, and odds are that your home earned more than you did.
Continue reading Home Prices Soar: Did Your Home Outearn You Last Year?
Where is real estate headed in 2022? Last year was definitely one for the real estate history books. The pandemic helped usher in a buying frenzy that caused home prices to soar nationwide by a record 19.9% between August 2020 and August 2021.
Continue reading The State of Real Estate in 2022
The housing market is caught up in a basic supply and demand predicament. Homes in the U.S. are selling at lightning speed, but the availability of listings remains limited. Helped by historically low mortgage rates, buyers keep shopping for homes. This reduces the available inventory and pushes home prices up across the country.
Continue reading 5 Factors Telling Us Where the Housing Market Is Headed
If you’re a homeowner in the San Diego area, chances are your house is making you rich. Although there’s no guarantee that homeownership will help you build wealth, the Federal Reserve 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances found that the median homeowner has 40 times the household wealth of a renter. And if you live in the San Diego – Carlsbad area or in several other parts of California, you’ve gained a lot of equity in the last 10 years.
Continue reading Homeownership Builds Wealth
Countywide, August saw an upturn in pending and closed sales over the previous month. There was no change in the median sales price compared to July, but a 7.4 percent increase over the previous year. Inventory is staying tight with a scant 2.3 months’ supply of housing on the market.
The market slowed down in July with fewer pending and closed sales compared to June. But because there were also fewer new listings, inventory stayed at a very low 2.4 months’ supply countywide.
This low inventory continues to keep pressure on home prices in San Diego and North San Diego County. A lack of resale homes, rising prices and a dearth of middle- and low- income building is causing a housing crisis for both buyers and renters. It is hitting the middle class especially hard.
KPBS™ interviewed Matt Adams, vice president of San Diego’s Building Industry Association. He says new housing is creating an “hourglass” market by building more homes for people at the top and bottom of the economic ladder, but few for people in the middle.
Click on the links below to read the full housing statistics reports.
Continue reading August 2016 San Diego County Real Estate Report and Interest Rates
Prices continue to rise throughout San Diego County and we are approaching the 2005 pre-recession median home price peak of $517,500. In fact, multiple zip codes throughout the county have met or exceeded their pre-recession peaks with many of those zip codes located in the North County Coastal area.
This is great news for those who are building equity, hard on those trying to enter the market, and scary for those who got hurt during the recession. But what do those numbers really mean? Housing affordability in San Diego County has dropped significantly since 2012, but even with significant price increases, it hasn’t changed much since 2014. This is because those price increases have not been adjusted for inflation, or changing incomes and interest rates. First American’s Economic Center has taken these factors into account in a recent report titled, First American Real House Price Index (RHPI).
The index set the RHPI at 100 in January 2000 and then compares those values to today’s numbers adjusting for income and interest rates. San Diego’s Real Price Index in April 2016 was 84.1. Recent events, like “Brexit,” have helped push down interest rates, increasing buying power even more. I’ll have our updated RHPI in next month’s San Diego County Real Estate Report.
Click on the links below to read the full housing statistics reports.
Continue reading July 2016 San Diego County Real Estate Report and Interest RatesSan Diego County jumped up to eighth position in realtor.com’s® 20 Hottest Real Estate Markets. That’s our best ranking in May since Realtor.com started comparing markets three years ago.
May’s market statistics certainly support that hot ranking. Countywide, the median sales price increased 7.9 percent compared to the previous May and the supply of available inventory fell to a meager 2.1 months.
This is wonderful for San Diego County home sellers, but rising prices are making it difficult for buyers. The California Association of Realtors reports that only 28 percent of households could afford the median priced home in the first quarter of 2016. With home prices continuing to rise, that number will most likely drop even lower.
See below for today’s interest rates.
Click on the links to read the full housing statistics reports.
Continue reading June 2016 San Diego County Real Estate Report and Interest RatesIt’s a great time to sell, and may be your last chance to buy. San Diego County home prices continue to rise; inventory keeps dropping, and interest rates are near historic lows.
With increasing prices, low inventory and short market times, the second quarter of 2016 looks very promising for San Diego County home sellers. But those rising prices are pushing buyers out of the market. If interest rates increase, this will squeeze many buyers out of an already tight market.
Here’s the three minute skinny for North County’s first quarter report with a forecast of what the second quarter will bring.
See below for today’s interest rates.
Click on the links to read the full housing statistics reports.
Continue reading May 2016 San Diego County Real Estate Report and Interest Rates