~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…

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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March 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on April 14, 2014 - 6:59pm
Prices edged up again last month:



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February 2014 Housing Data Rodeo

Submitted by Rich Toscano on March 17, 2014 - 8:11am
The housing market was pretty firm again in February.  The median price per square foot nudged upward for the month:


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Case-Shiller Index: Cheaper Homes Still Rebounding Fastest

Submitted by Rich Toscano on March 6, 2014 - 2:00pm
The Case-Shiller home price index is not as timely as the monthly median price data, but has a couple advantages over the latter. First, because the CS index is calculated by comparing repeat sales of the same homes, it gives a more accurate read on actual home price changes (more than you ever wanted to know on this topic can be found here). Second, the Case-Shiller data additionally breaks down price changes for low-, mid-, and high-priced homes, which allows us to observe what prices are doing in each of those segments of the housing market.

So, we know that 2013's price surge was most beneficial to lower-priced homes, which were up 22 percent for the year. Mid-priced homes were up 19 percent and the most expensive tier was up "only" 16 percent. The overall index was up 18 percent for the year. (Note: the price tiers are calculated simply by separating the home sales into thirds: the high-priced tier is comprised of the most expensive one-third of homes sold during the measurement period, and so on.)

This is the same pattern we've seen since the 2009 home price trough: from their respective lows through the end of 2013, the cheapest one-third of homes were up 51 percent, versus 30 percent for the middle tier, 23 percent for the expensive one, and 34 percent for the overall index. (Some historical context for those changes is found below). Most of that price increase -- and in the case of the middle and high tiers, all of it -- has taken place since 2012.

This graph of the different tiers since the 2009 price low shows that the relative strength of the cheaper homes continued right through to the end of the year:



(continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org)

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