San Diego Rental Market Softens
RealFacts research reported that the San Diego County apartment market rental rates and occupancies softened in the fourth quarter. Some landlords have begun offering move-in discounts to try to get tenants away from other complexes. San Diego rental property owners are starting to feel the economic pinch. San Diego MLS listings
Housing & Economy Recovery in 2009?
On 1/19/09 Bill Fleckenstein (president of Fleckenstein Capital, which manages a hedge fund based in Seattle) said: "The current bust is a direct consequence of a boom, but not an ordinary boom. It was a credit/real-estate bubble that caused a misallocation of capital of truly biblical proportions. Thus the pundits who think there will be any return to business as usual in the second half of 2009 are going to be very disappointed." San Diego real estate
New Housing Starts Plummet
The Commerce Department reported yesterday that new housing starts fell in December to the lowest levels since the government started compiling statistics in 1959.
Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s said: “Homebuilders have no choice, the market is bloated with excess supply and demand is weak. The pace of housing starts will remain depressed until 2011.”
President Obama it's said, intends to use between $50 billion and $100 billion of the remaining half of the $700 billion bank bailout fund to address foreclosures and bring stability to the housing market. San Diego housing
Home Prices to Fall 29% in 2009 – National Association of Home Builders
At building industry trade show in Las Vegas, David Crowe of the National Association of Home Builders said: "We have consumer confidence at or near a historic low, and it will probably deteriorate in 2009. The nation has an excess "overhang" of 6.2 million homes for sale, about 1.5 million too many." Crowe said he expects prices to fall another 29 percent this year and new home sales to decline 14 percent.
Also, Mr. Sullivan, chief economist of the Portland Cement Association said: "I see another full two years almost before a significant gain." Mr. Sullivan was one of the first industry economists to predict the current downturn. San Diego Realtors
San Diego Home Sales Up … Prices Drop 30%
A total of 19,926 new and resale homes sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month. That was up 19.2 percent from 16,720 for November, and up 50.5 percent from 13,240 for December 2007, according to MDA DataQuick.
Regionwide, foreclosure resales accounted for 55.7 percent of December's resales activity, up from 54.7 percent in November, and up from 24.3 percent in December 2007.
| Sales Volume | Median Price | |||||
| All homes | Dec-07 | Dec-08 | %Chng | Dec-07 | Dec-08 | %Chng |
| Los Angeles | 4,430 | 5,848 | 32.0% | $470,000 | $320,000 | -31.90% |
| Orange | 1,731 | 2,580 | 49.0% | $565,000 | $397,000 | -29.70% |
| Riverside | 2,503 | 4,435 | 77.2% | $355,000 | $209,000 | -41.10% |
| San Bernardino | 1,518 | 2,862 | 88.5% | $315,000 | $180,000 | -42.90% |
| San Diego | 2,468 | 3,325 | 34.7% | $430,000 | $300,000 | -30.20% |
| Ventura | 590 | 876 | 48.5% | $525,250 | $338,000 | -35.60% |
| SoCal | 13,240 | 19,926 | 50.5% | $425,000 | $278,000 | -34.60% |
San Diego Negative Home Equity
San Diego real estate mortgage bust. Much has been made of stated income, nina, ninja, etc. loans. The fact remains that the debt to income levels that were accepted during the boom time for people who could document their income exceeded 55%. Sub prime borrowers who could document their income could have DTI levels from 50-55%.
What is not talked about is that Fannie and Freddie loans could get approved with DTI levels as high as 63%. Typically a borrower would need some other strong factor such as high FICO or 6-8 months in reserve. Nevertheless, people are not walking from their homes just because they are upside down. Like most things in life there is rarely one answer, rather a multitude of factors.
Get ready for the next wave of foreclosures, just months away. This new wave of foreclosures will be prime mortgages on upper end homes. San Diego real estate agent