San Diego’s Real Estate Market

It’s hard not to forecast San Diego as a good housing market from 2017 through 2020 just as it is in LA, San Francisco and the Bay area. Buy if you can find anyone willing to sell.

The gorgeous climate, wonderful lifestyle, improving California economy, increased immigration of workers here, beefed up military spending, and proximity to Mexico and the Asian block countries means it is perfectly positioned for big housing demand and very high home prices.

There’s no better place to relocate to if you’re established or your business is doing well. San Diego will give you back everything you give it and more. I’ve had amazing clients in San Diego.

San Diego is an exciting place to live and for real estate investment. Similar to South Florida, it’s younger buyers in the US and foreign buyers that are eyeing property here. And while many experts call for only moderate price increases, you’ll see the stats below are suggesting higher San Diego home prices and decreased availability. It’s the right time to sell your San Diego home.

What’s San Diego’s achilles heel? Lack of housing development and urban intensification. Another problem might be politicians trying to suppress growth in this little piece of heaven. But San Diego’s smack dab in the middle of everything. They’ll be under extreme pressure to stop the resistance and net migration into SD County.

Political Resistance to Population Growth

In the face of huge demand, politicians will be under the gun about putting the Kaibosh on SD’s amazing real estate fortune. This factor will ensure prices will rocket out of control. Are local SD County politicians and the California government doing much to grow housing developments inland? Will the exodus of illegal Mexicans ease the issue? Are illegals buying homes?

Demand for homes in San Diego County will never subside. It is one the best places on earth and prices will stay high. For homeowners here, it is on of those infrequent opportunities to cash out and make a killing. You only need a dream and somewhere to go.

Here’s an easy to understand Forecast of San Diego’s real estate future.

San Diego’s Real Estate Forecast for 2017 is Rosy

And that’s despite the negative outlooks of some toward all of SoCal. February 2017 saw significant price increases (e.g., La Jolla up 29% year over year for detached houses and 55% for townhouse condos) and it’s driven by the California housing shortage crisis. Because of that, we’ll see big home prices right through the spring. The same outlook applies to Los Angeles, Orange County, San Jose, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

This graphics below shows housing is in short supply and affordability is plummeting. It’s an emergency situation that forecasts big rent increases and strong home price growth. Since home building takes time especially in a heavily regulated environment, there’s little chance of diminished demand. With incomes increasing and millennials coming into their family building years, the stage is set for rocketing prices.

The Three Tiered Market in SD

This excellent chart below courtesy of First Tuesday, shows how demand for lower priced properties is almost a separate world. It’s this more steep tier that is most likely to see huge price growth. Will this turn into a San Diego housing bubble as part of a US housing crash? The 2007 real estate crash saw big drops in luxury home prices in SD and this time around, we have to wonder if foreign money will vacate fast if the market heads downward. My opinion is that California and San Diego are pretty strong and there’s no other compelling destination for foreign money.

3 Tiered Real Estate Chart Courtesy of first tuesday

It’s an excellent opportunity for rental property investors who want to capitalize on the severe housing and rental property shortage. Property owners near the I5 with waterfront views in La Jolla, Del Mar, Claremont, Solana Beach, and Encinitas may not have much to be concerned with.

As long as the Trump ecconomic surge continues, San Diego’s outlook should be bright.

Should I Sell My San Diego Home?

You could hang onto your home for another 20%, but if enough San Diegans do keep their home off the market due to greed, the repercussions could be serious. This holding onto property is happening all over North America. With nowhere to go, there’s likely not going to be a big selloff anytime soon so price rises could elevate. To ease this crisis, governments could offer incentives for home sellers to let go of their property? For sure, new housing will not ease this crisis. What will make a difference is Realtors convincing people to sell their homes and move on with their lives.

The housing shortage is a global phenomena, not just in San Diego. All the in demand cities are seeing foreign that’s fleeing other countries boost up prices in New York, Palm Beach, Toronto, and Miami. The new problem we may face is a shortage of construction workers, which could raise construction costs. That will put upward pressure on resale home prices.

Considering Buying or Investing in Real Estate in San Diego?

Here’s 13 factors you should be weighing when buying or selling in San Diego County:

Housing Demand – High overall demand – “all cash bidding wars” in some cases
Housing Supply – Throttled, supply is far from what’s needed
Mortgage Rates – Continuing Low, especially in light of global economic slackening
Down Payment and mortgage rules – Banks are withdrawing FHA loans however some are offering downpayments as low as 3%
Regional Employment – Very low and falling
Buyer Income – low yet rising quickly
Home Prices – High and rising – out of reach for most buyers – many consider San Diego County homes grossly over-priced
Demographics – Millennials coming into family and home buying years and their income is growing fast
Number of Renters – increasing fast
New Home Construction: slow (100k to 140k per year) and illegal workers being chased out
Economic-Foreign Trade – Trump expected to raise US GDP and add fuel to incomes and home prices
President Trump – uncertainty of what Trump will create and how much interference he’ll see
Taxes on Sale of Home – Tax situation is great for sellers

What will the San Diego Real Estate Market Look Like in 2017?

2016 was a great year and there’s no reason to believe the market will falter. In fact, San Diego’s situation is very similar to the Los Angeles real estate forecast. Typically, SD’s housing market doesn’t pick up until after the main markets have grown. Normally, it takes years before demand for high end luxury homes reaches speed here in SD.

The market right now is in waiting mode for US buyers to get richer – particularly Millenials entering their family raising years. Sure there are South American Buyers looking for homes right now, as well as Russians, but that demand could dry up soon.

With the new Trump Era fully engaged, job growth will pick up steam in Southern California. This will drive growth in places like Escondido, Del Mar, Oceanside, Carlsbad, and San Diego.

San Diego Home Prices

Take a look at San Diego’s historic price chart courtesy of SDAR. Detached home prices are up $300,000 in the last 4.5 years. We’ll be looking at similar price growth rates in 2017. Many experts are commenting more on a possible housing crash, which would include San Diego.

If you’re thinking of selling, this might be the best time to contact a San Diego Realtor and begin the process. There is no vertical price rise on the graph, or glut of first time buyers with underwater mortgages, but 29% price rises in La Jolla might be a signal of trouble ahead.

My guess is that we’re in for good times for a while in San Diego. Make sure you review the Los Angeles report and the Toronto Real estate forecast to give you a better understanding the global foreign buyer demand that’s affecting all markets. US home builders should be optimistic about demand and put pressure on legislators to free up land and offer incentives.

Case Shiller’s home price index for San Diego is 229 compared to the national average of 185.

According to SDAR, home prices are up 6% to an average of $540,000. The real estate trends reflect the general demand as shown in the Los Angeles Market report. A sharp rise in real income, combined with lower unemployment, rising GDP, and fewer listings available points to higher prices in 2017, 2018 and 2019. But things are heating up as we saw in La Jolla where detached homes rose an astonishing 29% to an average of 2.26 million. These rates are only seen in other cities such as Toronto.

About Business: Should San Diego be a Startup Haven?

Forbes published their top cities for startups report and they chose San Diego as the best place to launch a new business. You probably wouldn’t get too much argument that a medical and security software startup would thrive here, but is SD better than silicon valley at anything else? Blair Giesen of Thevoiceofsandiego.com is a little skeptical that investors are here and that San Diego is a tech hub. But don’t tell that to San Diego Startup Week who just had their 5 day convention. And conventions are one big advantage San Diego does have.

San Diego Has All the Charm and a Good Economy – But are You Communicating That Well Enough?

California was just named the 5th largest economy in the world and it’s had a great year in 2016. That’s amazing, but does San Diego’s small business and startup growth compare to that of LA and silicon valley? Some of the data below suggests that despite growth in manufacturing and professional services, talented workers may not want to move to SD county. With the Trump presidency firmly launched, San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles may be headed for boom times.

Source: Wallet Hub

Which industries are best for startup businesses in San Diego?

Team Up with the Right Partners

Should San Diego Chamber of Commerce and San Diego Regional Economic Development be doing more? Although some startups have found success, it isn’t easy to succeed especially in digital marketing against tough competition. Companies would be wise to get connected with companies and investors in other cities, perhaps Canada or the UK to build a wider base of success. By networking and accessing those components that don’t and never will exist in San Diego, SD might be able to compete equally with LA, NY, Boston and Silicon Valley. What shouldn’t be underestimated is the desire of companies in Vancouver or Toronto or London to work with SD companies. Motivation is a key factor in performance.

San Diego’s wonderful leisure climate and opportunities are a powerful draw to bring smart talent, business entrepreneurs, and investors from around the world. All that’s needed are people who believe in San Diego!

Check out SDEDC’s downloadable infographic of the current economic stats (June 2016)

Should SD be Leveraging the 4 Pillars instead of Leaning on Them?

San Diego has 4 key industries including maritime/naval, healthcare, tourism, and research.

Although US naval fleets and operations are the biggest engine of business and tax revenue in San Diego, the future of war doesn’t look good. If defense budgets stay at current levels, that’s fine, but San Diego needs to grow and diversify to generate greater opportunity, investment and of course jobs.

According to dot.ca.gov, in 2012, most employment sectors in San Diego enjoyed job growth. And the city’s current 4.2% jobless rate is extraordinary. Most cities can only dream of that. The largest gains occurred in professional services (+5,700 jobs), leisure and hospitality (+5,400 jobs), and retail and wholesale trade (+4,500 jobs), and education and healthcare (+4,300 jobs). The only sector that lost jobs was government (-1,400 jobs).

It’s expected that from 2013 to 2018, growth will average 1.9 % per year and the fastest rates of growth will occur in information and professional and business services with annual rates of 3.8% and 2.9%

Compare SD’s per capital income growth to San Francisco’s pictured here at right, and you can expect more skilled, creative talented IT related workers to choose Palo Alto and Mountainview rather than San Diego to work and live. But for startups, it might be better to stick to Toronto (see Entrepreneur.com’s vote), Vancouver or Charlotte. Boston, LA, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley are expensive. And Sergei Brin of Google agrees.

Don’t launch your startup in Silicon Valley. During the boom cycles, the expectations around the costs – real estate, salaries – the expectations people and employees have … it can be hard to make a scrappy initial business that’s self-sustaining. Silicon Valley is good for scaling that opportunity, providing more capital and allowing more risk.” — Sergei Brin stated at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit June 27, 2016

From 2016 to 2020, SD’s population will grow about 180,000 and per capita income will grow about $4,000 to an average of $58,428. The professional services sector will see the strongest job growth in total of more than 20,000 new jobs.

percapitasanfranciso — San Francisco’s average income is $30,000 above San Diego’s. It will take a lot for San Diego Businesses to overcome that, and the fact that Silicon Valley is full of investment money.

And in this graphic at right, we discover that per capita income will rise much faster than the California average (other CA counties will do much better).

High wages in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountainview, Santa Clara, San Jose will draw high skilled IT workers like flies. However the Bay Area is pricey and the cost of doing business there will eat away at capital and profits. Silicon Valley looks to India for alleys but Donald Trump might throw a monkey wrench into their machine.

REAL ESTATE: High volumes of sales and soaring home prices indicate that compared to the rest of the nation, California metros are benefitting from strong housing sector growth in 2013. San Francisco is considered by some to be the strongest market in the country, closely followed by several other California metros including San Jose, Sacramento, Orange, and San Joaquin Counties.

Where will you find San Francisco apartments for rent? Are you looking for the best cities to invest in real estate in 2017? Where is the best Vacation destination: Costa Rica or San Diego? Is this he right time to sell your home? Reports suggest people don’t intend to sell their homes so what impact will that have on the US housing construction forecast? How will first time buyers ever get the mortgage financing they need to buy?

Tag: Claremont

San Diego Real Estate Forecast