The End of the Year Report

The Hidden Meadows real estate market is not so bad as it might otherwise appear if you only read the newspaper – it is at least a "normal" winter market.

We will know better what the New Year will bring by the end of January – and certainly by the end of February or the first half of March – that is when the usual "selling season" begins.

In the next two weeks we will have a spate of homes comes back on the market that were taken off the market simply because of the Holidays. That should increase the number of homes on the market by five or so, but that is a seasonal anomaly.

My own view is that there was not, and will not be any "housing bubble" (see my previous pronuncios for the rationale). The only soft spot in the San Diego market, today, is condos. That is because there has been a recent and very pronounced increase in apartment conversions to condos.

Those conversions have had two poor effects on the general market – it has depressed the number of rentals, and therefore the number of "affordable housing rentals" and it has depressed, temporarily, the condo market throughout San Diego County.