Welcome to San Diego

The La Jolla real estate market, as well as the greater Southern California real estate market in general, has started to recover from the economic recession which peaked several months earlier. According to a November 25, 2009 article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “San Diego County home prices continued their months-long climb in September but at a slower  pace than during the summer, the closely watched Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed yesterday. Mirroring trends elsewhere, San Diego’s index was up 0.9 percent from August, the slowest month-to-month rise since May. But on a year-over-year basis, the 5.7 percent decline was the smallest in more than two years. Analysts have attributed part of the improved housing market to the federal government’s $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit, which was scheduled to end this month. It has been extended to spring and expanded to include some move-up homebuyers.”

La Jolla home sales have also risen along with the rest of the San Diego region and Southern California. According to a November 17, 2009 blog post in the Wall Street Journal by James R. Hagerty, “Home prices in Southern California are showing signs of leveling off, at least for now. Home sales in Southern California rose modestly in October, and prices were above year-earlier levels in two counties, San Diego and Orange, MDA DataQuick reported. Overall in the six-county area, the median sale price declined by the smallest amount in two years, the La Jolla, Calif., data provider said. It cited a ’shrinking inventory of homes for sale and government and industry efforts to stoke demand and curtail foreclosures.’”

The good news for real estate in La Jolla was echoed by a November 20, 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times. The piece, composed by Alejandro Lazo, noted that “California home prices edged higher last month as first-time buyers took advantage of a federal tax credit and foreclosure properties made up a smaller slice of the market, fresh data showed up Thursday. The median price paid for a home statewide was $257,000 in October, up 2.4% from September and down 7.6% from October 2008, according to MDA DataQuick, a real estate research firm based in San Diego.”