The August North County and San Diego real estate markets showed strong, year-over median price increases last month. Pent up buyer demand, historically low interest rates and continued inventory shortages are all keeping pressure on home prices, despite the impact of COVID-19.

Those low interest rates are also motivating homeowners to refinance. If you have already refinanced your home, you are lucky to have missed the 0.5 percent “adverse market fee” on all refinances that was just announced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Freddie Mac said this new fee is going into effect as of September 1 “as a result of risk management and loss forecasting precipitated by COVID-19 related economic and market uncertainty.” If you’d like more information about this new refinance fee, please contact me.

North County and San Diego Real Estate August 2020

Year-over, median prices were up 10.3 percent countywide and 11.1 percent in North County. Inventory dropped by about one-half compared to the previous year, and market times were shorter. The number of new listings dropped while pending sales increased in both markets.

See below for this month’s statistics and daily interest rate updates.