The San Diego Tribune reported on Monday, May 10th that San Diego County led the nation in rising home values in March. Prices rose 3.7% from March, 2009 to $364,800. Kelly Cunningham, an economist at National University’s Institute for Policy Research in San Diego, said the reports show that the local market has stabilized: “After a long and crippling downturn of housing values and prices, at long last, it does seem like we’ve hit that bottom and are starting to see some increases.”
Actually, he is saying what we as real estate agents have been noticing for several months. The San Diego market is very active with multiple offers on properties up to $700,000.
MLS statistics on 13 coastal zip codes show a good possibility for this year being one of the best real estate years ever. So far in 2010, 300 properties are contingent (accepted waiting for bank approval), and 800 properties are pending (in escrow). Taken together, that is a 300% increase in pending properties from this time last year. And so far this year, 1200 coastal properties have closed escrow, up 35-40% from last year at this time.
Cunninham continues: “Prices are unlikely to drop further and now might be a very good time to consider buying.”