San Diego Housing Forecast – March 2022

The market shot up again here in San Diego. Let’s find out why.

We are up another 3.4% as of February 2022. That’s on top of 4% gains in January of 2022. So in January, we went from $850,000 to $855,000. We’re now up to $915,000 as the median price for home sales here in San Diego. That is after home sales remained essential flat from July. The median price was ranging from $850,000 to $860,000, and now it’s starting a rapid rise.

What we’re seeing is the sales to list price is rising rapidly. 105.3% is the average final sales price to list price. That is the highest that it’s been essentially ever here in San Diego. The bidding wars are definitely getting out of control, and it’s getting very frothy for sure.

So what is going on? This is actually in the midst of rising interest rates. We’ve been essentially at a 4% interest. Everyone is thinking that the market is going to cool off because of that. Is it going to crash? Well, right now, it’s getting stronger, and I think a lot of the reason why is because buyers are trying to get in before interest rates go up even more. Obviously, we have rising inflation, so there’s huge concern about interest rates continuing to rise to counteract that.

There’s also the war in Ukraine. There have been a lot of questions that I’ve been getting around that. How is it going to impact the real estate market? I wish I really knew how it was going to impact it. The longer it drags on and the bigger it gets, it will definitely have an impact. If it’s short-lived, then perhaps it won’t have a major impact. Right now, we’re not seeing any impact at all—no cancellations that I’ve seen because of that, but you never know.

So, very strong market here in San Diego, and that’s for both single-family homes and for condos. Right now, we’re at very very low inventories, at just over 1,700 homes available. We are up 5% over January when we had just over 1,600 homes available. So inventory is coming up a little bit but essentially holding flat. 

What’s going on? Where are the buyers coming from? Why are prices going high? A report came out recently that San Diego is the least affordable city in America, more expensive than San Franciso or Los Angeles. While that’s a great clickbait headline, and while that might be true based on income levels to what the house costs here and overall cost of living, it’s actually still significantly cheaper than Los Angeles or the Bay Area. So Los Angeles’ median price is right around $1.2 to $1.3 million, and the Bay Area is $1.5 to $1.6 million.

“The bidding wars are definitely getting out of control.”

So San Diego is considered affordable from a home sale perspective as compared to these other cities. So we’re seeing a lot of people moving to San Diego with large down payments from the homes they’re selling up there to be able to put in the homes down here because they can work remotely, but a lot of tech is moving here. So that’s where we’re seeing a lot of the money is coming from, and a lot of these home sales are being driven from.

That being said, the people I’m working with are certainly both relocation and a lot of people here in San Diego, looking to either buy their first home, upgrade their home, or just cash out and move out of state. So there are still a lot of different types of buyers in the market. There’s not one single market driver here at all, a lot of different factors.

So that’s what’s happening in the market. If I can help you either buy or sell or if you’re looking to know what your home might be worth, I’m happy to have a conversation with you and see what your home might sell for in today’s market. And really, it’s about taking a look at where is the housing market going and what will your house sell for once we get it on the market. 

So what it might sell for today might be different than what it might sell for in a couple of months, so let’s have a conversation about how we can help you sell your home. Looking forward to talking to you on the next one. 

Curtis Chism, Realtor
858-281-2568 | Mobile
mailto:info@sandiegohomes.io
Chism Team | DRE #02105113
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