The San Diego Association of Realtors released the May 2009 home sales statistics on June 11. These numbers have been anxiously awaited by San Diego real estate professionals. And for some reason the SDAR delayed posting the numbers on their website until June 11, but backdated the post to June 5. It seems like the numbers were almost too good to believe, and they needed an extra week to digest and verify the numbers.
The median price of detached homes in San Diego CA in May increased 1.49% from April, to $340,000 on volume of 1,786 houses sold (volume down 1.81 percent from 1,819 homes sold in April). The average price of a detached home increased 4.22 percent to $452,355. The news for attached San Diego condos and townhomes was even better. The median price of attached homes increased 13.33 percent from April to $256,277 (volume down 0.44 percent from 909 sold in April). The average price of attached homes in San Diego during the month of May increased 6.66% to $256,277.
This is the fifth month in a row that the median price of homes for sale in San Diego has increased. This is starting to look like a real trend. Five months of sustained upward price activity is not easy to discount.
Much of the buying activity has been in the lower end of the market, with entry-level homes priced under $400,000. We’ve been asked whether all of the sales are from “bottom feeders” looking for the best deals on the lowest-priced houses and condos in San Diego County. So we wanted to take a closer look at the numbers to see where a handful of mid-to-upper priced San Diego neighborhoods stand.
It turns out that some of these more expensive San Diego neighborhoods also experienced significant price increases from April to May. The median price of Del Mar houses is up 81.46%, La Jolla houses up 10.37%, Poway houses up 19.8%, Rancho Santa Fe houses up 21.26%, Solana Beach houses up 79.57%, Pacific Beach houses up 6.06%, and Rancho Penasquitos houses up 23.08%.
We also suspected that the recent price increases might be overshadowed by year-to-date price declines. But the reality is better than we expected. Comparing the May 2009 median prices to the May 2008 median prices, Del Mar houses are up 33.46%, Poway houses up 11.01%, Solana Beach houses up 16.65%, and Rancho Penasquitos houses up 11.30%. Here are the median home prices in April and May, along with the number of homes sold, the percent change from April, and the percent change from May 2008:
| Compared to | |||||||
| May-09 | April-09 | Month | May 2008 | ||||
| 91941 | La Mesa | 26 | $361,250 | 27 | $370,000 | -2.36% | -1.70% |
| 92009 | Carlsbad | 33 | $705,000 | 35 | $780,000 | -9.62% | -3.09% |
| 92014 | Del Mar | 14 | $1,634,906 | 5 | $899,000 | 81.86% | 33.46% |
| 92024 | Encinitas | 23 | $710,000 | 19 | $872,000 | -18.58% | -2.07% |
| 92037 | La Jolla | 15 | $1,650,000 | 16 | $1,495,000 | 10.37% | -13.16% |
| 92064 | Poway | 28 | $605,000 | 23 | $505,000 | 19.80% | 11.01% |
| 92067 | Rancho Santa Fe | 10 | $2,637,500 | 15 | $2,175,000 | 21.26% | -6.55% |
| 92075 | Solana Beach | 7 | $1,600,000 | 2 | $891,000 | 79.57% | 16.65% |
| 92109 | Pacific Beach | 7 | $700,000 | 8 | $660,000 | 6.06% | -2.10% |
| 92117 | Clairemont | 31 | $375,000 | 25 | $395,000 | -5.06% | -13.59% |
| 92122 | University City | 6 | $517,000 | 3 | $560,000 | -7.68% | -1.05% |
| 92127 | Rancho Bernardo | 35 | $685,209 | 21 | $715,000 | -4.17% | -16.94% |
| 92129 | Rancho Penasquitos | 27 | $640,000 | 19 | $520,000 | 23.08% | 11.30% |
| 92130 | Carmel Valley | 30 | $785,000 | 25 | $880,000 | -10.80% | -17.80% |
This is looking like very good news for the future of the San Diego real estate market, and hopefully other major real estate markets in the U.S. will soon follow suit. In San Diego County there is presently very strong demand and short supply. Interest rates are still very low, but trending upward. There could be more foreclosure properties for sale in the near future, but assuming the banks don’t dump all of their inventory at once, there seems to be ample demand to absorb new foreclosure inventory without pushing prices substantially lower. Only time will tell. We’ll keep you posted.
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It’s good to see the median home prices up in some of the more expensive neighborhoods, particulary in Rancho Penasquitos! Some suggest that the foreclosures have been concentrated in the lower price ranges as many speculators in that pruice range walked away. Now it will be interesting to see if foreclosures increase in the more expensive neighborhoods as those families exhaust their funds. If prices are increasing, perhaps this wil not be the result which will be really good news.
That would be good news indeed. We’ve all seen enough foreclosures by now to last a lifetime. On my next blog post I’ll discuss the new foreclosure moratorium that takes effect in California starting tomorrow, June 15.