San Diego Real Estate House Value Market Update

In a recent article from the San Diego Union Tribune on Real Estate:

San Diego County housing prices continue to decline but at a slowing rate, the widely watched Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed yesterday.

In the index that measures paired prices paid for the same single-family homes over time, March prices in San Diego County were down 22.04 percent from year-ago levels. That’s a slight improvement from the 22.86 percent year-over-year slide in February and from the peak decline of 26.68 percent in October.

“Well, that’s good news,” said Leonard Baron, a part-time lecturer on real estate investment at San Diego State University.

Baron said the slowing slide reflects continuing demand for low-cost distressed properties.

For the second straight month, San Diego ranked as the eighth worst of 20 major U.S. markets in terms of price declines. In January, the region had the sixth worst year-over-year decline.

San Diego prices have dropped 42.3 percent from their peak in November 2005 and are back to where they were in July 2002, according to the Case-Shiller data. But they are still 45 percent above their level in January 2000.

The biggest year-over-year drop reported yesterday was in Phoenix, where the Case-Shiller index was down 36 percent. Denver had the smallest decline, at 5.5 percent. Los Angeles dropped 22.3 percent and San Francisco was off 30.1 percent over the same period.

Meanwhile, the national price index for the first quarter was down a record 19.1 percent from year-ago levels.

But for the second straight month, the overall decline for 20 metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller did not set a record. Yet that was insufficient evidence for many analysts to declare a national turnaround.

Read the Full Article Here.

UCLA Anderson Forecast’s Outlook for San Diego County: Recession for Most of 2009 with a Recovery in Housing Market

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The UCLA Anderson Forecast today released its annual economic forecast for San Diego County. The Forecast states the official end month for the national recession is likely to be early in the second half of 2009, and the worst of the problems for San Diego will then be over. The unemployment rate for the nation and San Diego is likely to continue to elevate until growth becomes strong enough to absorb new entrants into the labor market.

“As the U.S. and California economies continue to contract, San Diego’s unemployment rate will grow to 10.3% in 2009. The deterioration in the local economy is led by growing layoffs in non-residential construction, manufacturing and retail jobs,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist, UCLA Anderson Forecast. “But there is light at the end of the tunnel. A forecast turnaround in the U.S. and California economies later this year should begin the recovery process in San Diego by the end of the year.”

Because 2009 will be a rough year for California, which has larger intrinsic problems than the nation, the San Diego County economy will remain weak. The commercial real estate markets have softened along with the labor markets, and more problems with refinancing this year could weaken the office market even further.

Residential real estate is poised to recover in 2009. Sales of homes have soared in the county and values appear to have stabilized. Both new inventory of homes and foreclosure inventory are currently on the decline.

“As long as homeowner distress does not rebound and recent federal government programs designed to avert foreclosure have some success, a more conventional recovery in the residential sector should be underway this year,” said Mark Schniepp, author of the San Diego forecast report. “By mid to late 2010, the recovery of the broader San Diego County economy should be more convincing and 2011 will be a year of above average economic growth including job and income creation.”

About UCLA Anderson Forecast

UCLA Anderson Forecast is one of the most widely watched and often-cited economic outlooks for California and the nation and was unique in predicting both the seriousness of the early-1990s downturn in California and the strength of the state’s rebound since 1993. More recently, the Forecast was credited as the first major U.S. economic forecasting group to declare the recession of 2001. Visit UCLA Anderson Forecast on the Web at http://uclaforecast.com.

About UCLA Anderson School of Management

UCLA Anderson School of Management, established in 1935, is regarded among the leading business schools in the world. UCLA Anderson faculty members are renowned for their teaching excellence and research in advancing management thinking. Each year, UCLA Anderson provides management education to more than 1,700 students enrolled in MBA, Executive MBA, Fully-Employed MBA and doctoral programs, and to more than 2,000 professional managers through executive education programs. Combining highly selective admissions, varied and innovative learning programs, and a world-wide network of 36,000 alumni, UCLA Anderson develops and prepares global leaders.

Bruce Norris – California Real Estate Econonic Update

For me, Bruce Norris is the most trusted source of Real Estate Investing Information in California and I am an avid reader and listener of his newsletters and radio shows.  The Norris Group is releasing this very lengthy newsletter as the TNG Economic Newsletter and the TNG Investor Quarterly combined.  Once you start reading, you’ll understand why.

Here is the latest Newsletter Link:  http://www.thenorrisgroup.com/2009EconomicUpdate.pdf

Also, Bruce will be a featured speaker several times in the coming months at local investor, Realtor, and appraiser associations. He’ll also be teaching his one-day intensive in San Diego. Dates are below;

May 12th
Six Proven Steps to Become a Real Estate Multi-Millionaire… in the Next 24 Months
San Diego Creative Investors Association (SDCIA)
Scottish Rite Center,
1895 Camino del Rio South,
San Diego CA, 92108
http://www.sdcia.com/

Jun 6th
California Only Investor Intensive
San Diego Creative Investors Association (SDCIA)
Hojel Hall of the Americas Auditorium
International Lane
10111 N. Torrey Pines Rd
UCSD Campus International Lane
La Jolla, CA
Register at: http://www.thenorrisgroup.com/sdcia.html