~Welcome to the Econo-Almanac~

I started this website in mid-2004 to chronicle San Diego’s spectacular housing bubble.  The purpose of the site remains, as ever, to provide objective and evidence-based analysis of the San Diego housing market. A quick guide to the site follows:

  • New visitors are advised to begin with the Bubble Primer or (if wondering about the site name) the FAQ list.
  • Housing articles I’ve written are found in the main section below.
  • Discussion topics posted by site users are found in the “Active Forum Topics” box to the lower right.
  • This website is an avocation; by day I help people with their investments as a financial advisor*.  Market commentary, an overview of our investment approach, and more can be found on my firm's website.

Thanks for stopping by…

January 2017 Housing Mini-Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on February 23, 2017 - 1:30pm
I'm working on some valuation stuff to be posted soon. Meanwhile, here's a selection of graphs on the January resale data.  Take note of that steep decline in months of inventory from this time last year... if that doesn't rectify itself, it's a sign of higher prices immediately ahead.





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December 2016 Housing Data

Submitted by Rich Toscano on January 25, 2017 - 4:41pm
Here's the final score for the year 2016:



Looking at the single family number, which gives the best read, prices increased a couple % more than inflation, and roughly the same as wage and rent growth.  As one would expect in a given year, all things being equal. 

This time they're not equal in that valuations began the year at an elevated level.  However, as discussed in the afore-linked article, perhaps valuations can remain higher than usual while interest rates remain lower than usual.

Back to the monthly data, prices did pull back, but that's reasonable at this time of year:



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November 2016 Housing Data

Submitted by Rich Toscano on December 11, 2016 - 5:54pm
Months of inventory crept up a bit, but still made for the lowest November in recent years:



The 3-month average of prices crept up as well:



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VOSD: Minus the Bubble, San Diego Homes Are at Their Most Expensive Ever

Submitted by Rich Toscano on October 12, 2016 - 9:23pm

I wrote a piece for voiceofsandiego.org, the intent of which was to introduce people to my preferred valuation approach (and to give a quick overview of where we are now). Probably not a whole lot new for longtime Piggs, but possibly of interest to newer readers.

Here's the synopsis:

A good approach to measuring the “expensiveness” of San Diego housing is to compare home prices with local rents and incomes, which together encompass the most important drivers of home prices. This shows homes to be unusually pricey right now, though nowhere near levels reached during the bubble.

And the link:

Minus the Bubble, San Diego Homes Are at Their Most Expensive Ever

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September 2016 Housing Data

Submitted by Rich Toscano on October 11, 2016 - 9:11pm
Just a quick update on the September data.  Here's an overview:



Inventory remained very tight, with months of inventory easily at the lowest level in the past four years:



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Valuation Preview

Submitted by Rich Toscano on September 25, 2016 - 9:45am
Hi all - I'm finally getting around to updating the valuation data; a full writeup is forthcoming but here in the meantime are some charts:



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August 2016 Housing Data

Submitted by Rich Toscano on September 24, 2016 - 12:19pm
Prices have leveled off in the last couple of months...



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July 2016 Monthly Housing Data

Submitted by Rich Toscano on August 21, 2016 - 5:37pm
Well, hello there! Can I interest you in some housing data? Some charts and graphs, perhaps, and possibly even a table?

I'll start with what I think is the key graph in this (currently undersupplied) market: months of inventory, which combines supply and demand into a single handy stat.  We can see here that while supply increased compared to demand, that is typical for the season, and we remain slightly below last year's levels. 



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June 2016 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on July 16, 2016 - 2:27pm
Home prices continued their general uptrend last month. The monthly graph of median price/square foot is a bit noisy...



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April 2016 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on May 17, 2016 - 9:25pm
After a little dip in February, San Diego home prices* experienced a sizable pop in March and April.



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February 2016 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on March 15, 2016 - 9:09pm
Supply is still tight out there, with February's months of active inventory lower than either of the past two years:



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December 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on January 9, 2016 - 8:52am


December is always an unusual month in that closed sales typically increase (presumably people trying to jam the deal through before year-end), while pendings sales drop (presumably due to holiday disruption):



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October 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on November 22, 2015 - 3:16pm
Prices have flattened out over the past few months, as might be expected during this time of year.  This is most easily seen in the Case Shiller proxy, which uses a 3 month average:



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August 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on September 10, 2015 - 9:19am
While the scarcity of inventory has eased a bit, supply is still pretty tight in the grand scheme of things.  Prices have accordingly continued to be pressured upwards, with the price per square foot experiencing a 2% pop last month.  Here are the MoM and YoY stats...



...and here is the single graph that I think best sums up the state of things (showing as it does the relationship between months of inventory and price changes, as well as recent trends in both those things):



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Shambling Towards Affordability, Mid-Year 2015

Submitted by Rich Toscano on July 26, 2015 - 2:54pm
Once again, the traditional "Shambling Towards Affordability" title for this series proves inapt.  The market does have a bit of a shamble to its step, but the direction in which it lumbers is distinctly un-affordable.  (In price terms, anyway... low rates do ease the sting, but that's a separate topic to be addressed below).

While valuations have crept up a bit over the past year, the big picture hasn't changed much: home prices are significantly higher, when compared with local rents and incomes, than they typically have been over the almost 4-decade history of the data:



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