~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…

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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June 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on July 15, 2015 - 2:50pm
The local housing market was looking strong as of last month.  Prices continued to creep higher, sales were robust, and inventory, while slightly higher, failed to outpace the increase in demand.

Months of inventory is not as low as it was during the 2013 feeding frenzy, but it's just about the lowest since -- if that doesn't change, we can expect further upward price pressure immediately ahead.



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May 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on June 16, 2015 - 6:07pm
Hi all.  Not much has changed from last month's update, so I'm just going to do a chart dump and dispense with the words.  Starting now.



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March -- April 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on May 20, 2015 - 4:46pm
The market's been pretty hot, by which I mean, demand seems to be outstripping supply. I base this statement on the below chart, which shows that while months of inventory is higher than it was during the spring 2013 feeding frenzy, it is lower than this time last year:



...and, it's among the lowest we've seen recently outside said feeding frenzy:

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February 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on March 22, 2015 - 5:44pm


As of January, there was a big divergence between pending and closed sales: closed sales were very weak (even considering the seasonality), but pendings were strong.  This gap narrowed substantially in February as closed sales made a big catch up move.  Check it out in the graph below... closed sales were unusually low in January, but a lot closer to recent years (albeit still somewhat low) in February.



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January 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on February 7, 2015 - 2:53pm
Sorry Piggs, I didn't get around to posting the December numbers.  But let us not dwell on the past*, and instead soldier on to the January numbers.



*Though if you really want to, the December data is all in the charts below.

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November 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on December 21, 2014 - 3:20pm
Hi everyone -- I'm going to keep it brief and just do a graph-only version this month.  Happy holidays to all!



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October 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on November 28, 2014 - 5:50pm
Better late than never (but in my defense it was another uneventful month):



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September 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on October 12, 2014 - 4:17pm
Here's the big picture -- not a lot of movement last month:



Drilling down to some individual graphs, the price per square foot continued in its meandering ways:



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August 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on September 17, 2014 - 1:03pm
Here it is in a nutshell:



Charts and some thoughts below...
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July 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on August 10, 2014 - 1:35pm
I think we can agree that the typical Econo-Almanac reader is both unusually attractive, and a busy go-getter with places to be and things to do.  Things besides reading a real estate blog.  It is for you Coffee Achievers1 that I present this convenient new2 table summarizing the month's statistics:



1 Youths, please see this important educational video.
2 It is unclear to me why I didn't start doing this like 8 years ago or something.

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June 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on July 16, 2014 - 6:34pm
Well now... the median price per square foot for single family homes (which is the best real-ish time price indicator) surged by 3.3% last month:



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May 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on June 15, 2014 - 4:50pm

San Diego's median price per square foot eked out a small gain in May, with the single family home median rising .3% from April.



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Shambling Towards Affordability: Housing Valuations Surpass Pre-Bubble Peak

Submitted by Rich Toscano on May 25, 2014 - 5:39pm
Let's do a quick check-in on San Diego housing valuations:

San Diego housing valuations

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April 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on May 18, 2014 - 6:37pm
It was a month of yet more gains for home prices, per the median price per square foot, with condos going particularly nuts.  That latter bit is not very analytically important, as the condo price/sqft can be very volatile.  But it does make for an exciting looking chart:



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