As 2009 comes to an end, we are all interested in what 2010 will hold for the San Diego real estate market.  One question I hear over and again is; “Karen do you feel like the real estate market has bottomed out?”  Over the past several months, I have seen the prices of existing homes slowly creep up.  I have also seen the number of offers and closed sales increase steadily.  There has been a notable increase in competition for sales up to $1.5 million which was not the case in the earlier months of the year. 

According to Sign On San Diego’s Roger Showley, the Urban Land Institute recently released its “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010” report.  On the report’s 9-point scale, San Diego’s real estate market is predicted to improve to 5, a whopping one tenth of a point above 2009’s ranking. What does this mean? Not much really, but it does mean that things certainly are not getting worse.

As we all know, San Diego’s residential sector took an enormous hit dropping from a median home price of $517,500 in 2005, to a much more realistic $325,000, and now, with the residential market coming around, so too will other real estate sectors. Showley reported that Jonathan Miller, a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, who wrote the “Emerging Trends” report said “San Diego is improving because its housing market, having declined earlier than markets in most places, has “stabilized” and is thus setting the stage for nonresidential properties to recover.” “Setting the stage” doesn’t mean nonresidential properties WILL recover in 2010, but I don’t think anyone is going to complain about a stabilizing market that brings with it the hope of once again having flourishing real estate market, even if it is still a ways off. 

One thing I do know is that there are a couple of great programs in place for both first time homebuyers as well as for existing qualifying homeowners.  Please see my previous blog posts, or to find out more about the qualifications for repeat buyers please click here.