With all the doomsday news going around regarding the national and world economy, I thought I'd post something positive about my local san diego marketplace.

What some people don't know is that San Diego is usually ahead of other markets with regards to home sales trends (at least that has been my experience). We hit the peak of our market in the summer of 2005. It was at that point that home sales started to decrease and home values hit their plateau. For 2 years, our market got slowly worse and worse it's biggest downturn started in response to the lending industry crash in August of 2007. Home sales numbers dropped significantly and inventory went even higher. The market was flooded with short-sales that weren't selling and overpriced listings.

But early this year we started to see relief. Sales numbers started picking up and low and behold, the short-sales actually started selling! Foreclosures also weren't messing around anymore - the banks finally decided that they had to underprice the last comp to sell their homes and they started getting multiple bids in the first week. When the summer of 2008 started, we were already in full swing. Every month was slightly better than the last and this even continued past the usual end of summer lull. August is usually a high inventory month, but this August, we saw a noticeable decrease in inventory. And in september, we saw more detached homes countywide go pending than since August 2005.

You can read more specifics at the articles I posted online at a local portal site I write for:

San Diego Real Estate Trends

I can't tell you what the winter will bring, with all the talk about such a poor economy and people wondering what bail out plans will be put in place and will they work. But I can tell you that we are doing well right now. Investors are sounding the charge for immediate "cash flow" after their required 20% down and first-time buyers can afford housing again.

However, I am observing a serious stratification of the market with regards to price. The lower priced market is doing exceptionally well, while the upper end luxury market is moving slowly. It is my belief that the luxury market did not adjust like the lower end did over the last 2 years and since there is a larger disparity between them in price, consumers are not buying - they don't see the value and I don't blame them. The Mission Hills Real Estate market is the luxury market near downtown that I watch the most closely and this is what I am seeing.

Hopefully, this trend will continue and the rest of the country will soon see the turnaround that our market has seen over the last 6 months. If foreclosure numbers start to go down, we might actually be at the bottom of the market and start to see low-end values increase again over the next 2 years.

I look forward to your comments and your thoughts on your marketplace.

Thanks!

Adam Pascu

San Diego Homes for sale