San Diego Coastal Real Estate Resource

San Diego County Real Estate Market Update for 2010

by Jeffrey on January 19, 2010

in Breaking News, Real Estate, Statistics

Median San Diego Homes Prices on Up Swing According to MDA DataQuick

An article today in the Union Tribune featured some good news regarding the San Diego real estate market.

San Diego County’s median housing price rose in December for the first time in four months, MDA DataQuick reported yesterday, adding further evidence that the housing market is stabilizing after four years of declines.

With sales rising, inventories lower, interest rates attractive and buyer interest growing, the latest report suggests that the market reached bottom last year and a recovery, if not under way, will come soon.

“Home values have stopped falling and there are signs that they’re edging up from the bottom,” said University of San Diego economist Alan Gin. “I think we’ll see some stability in the housing market. But it’s going to take a long time — we may not get to the inflated heights for a long time.”

DataQuick reported that the median rose $5,000 to $330,000 after remaining unchanged for four months at $325,000. It was up 10 percent from December 2008’s median of $300,000.

There was also nearly a 10 percent increase in the number of sales from December 2008. The 3,652 sales was the best showing in December since 2006.

I thought it would be interesting to look at some active market data – this data is pulled from Sandicor MLS by Altos Research and shows us real time what is happening in the San Diego real estate market. Interesting to see in the following graph for San Diego County that median prices have continued to fall since October 2009. I have broken down the median prices in 4 quartiles with the highest price range having the most change over the last year.

So while sold median prices are trending up, active median prices are flat to trending downward. I would suggest that this still indicates some soft market time ahead, particularly for the upper quartile inventory.

What may be helpful in keeping prices stable or climbing is inventory. Looking at San Diego home inventory for single family homes so far we have not seen the dramatic uptrend that would signal the start of a new year. Inventory continues to be low in all four quartiles.

Finally let’s take a look at days on the market for all price quartiles for single family homes in San Diego.

So I think overall we are seeing some positive news both in the Sold and Active Inventory. The wild card will be if inventory grows ahead of demand – my guess is that probably will not happen as the market is being manipulated by the Government. Low interest rates and tax credits will probably fuel a pretty active 2010 at least through the first part of the year.

Caution and education are important when investing in the real estate market. Take your time and purchase the best location and quality you can – my guess is you’ll be glad you did in 10 years time!

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