The San Diego Home Blog

San Diego buyers are all riding the market currents in the same boat - A glass-bottom boat. I continue to see the majority of the would-be buyers with eyes focused south, waiting to see the bottom. For so many, only when they sense the floor is near will they toss their line into the real estate waters.

Jim the Realtor introduced his fourth-quarter contest this morning to see who could come closest to estimating 2007 4th quarter sales. This was my inspiration for sharing some of what I believe are the most telling housing trend statistics for our market.

This graph, data courtesy of the Sandicor Multiple Listing Service through 9/28/07, shows the number of homes sold by quarter dating back to the beginning of 2005. Remember, Summer of 2005 was roughly the peak in our previously robust local housing market.

Now, compare this with the LISTING trends for the past two quarters (from Altos Research). This chart reflects average listing price per square foot in San Diego for the past two quarters of 2007.

Does anyone else see a disconnect? If you are a seller, wishing it to be true (that you will get “your” price, whether it is what you want, what you need, or what your neighbor sold for last year, last month or last week) will not make it so. For the number of sales to increase, one of two things has to happen. Either buyers need to suddenly find themselves willing to pay the “yesterday’s prices” that sellers are asking, or sellers need to make their pricing more attractive. If you answered “b”, you are correct.

You can (you need to) stage your property all day long, but there are lots of fish down there, and the buyers are looking for the ones nearest the bottom. Sellers who don’t recognize this pretty quickly may themselves become another statistic.

For those of us who drive it and see it every day, it’s an embarassment. But that will all be changing. I’m speaking of one of the major gateway entrances to Scripps Ranch - Mira Mesa Blvd. from I-15 to Scripps Ranch Blvd.

What is currently one giant eyesore will be transformed significantly within the next year.  Read the details at the Scripps Ranch Blog -www.ScrippsRanchBlog.com

Since Kris spent so much time putting together the new and very cool mash-up Google map on our www.sandiegocastles.com website, I now feel obligated to push ahead with the latest installment of our ever-popular ”Better Know a Neighborhood” series.

Autumn Ridge is one of the more sought after neighborhoods in Scripps Ranch. Why? The combination of higher end product types and the location. It offers four fabulous floor plans, including the increasingly rare one-story home. It is also in a prime location, smack in the middle of Scripps Ranch Villages. It’s in close proximity to both Dingeman Elementary School and the soon to be new Ellen Browning Scripps (formerly Marshall Middle School) Elementary school, both designated as California Distinguished Schools, as well as the Scripps Ranch Community Park and Recreation Center with an abundance of sport, recreation and family friendly facilities. This park is the location of the largest annual event in Scripps Ranch, the Community Fair. 

Built in the late 1990’s by McMillin Homes, Autumn Ridge features Mediterranean-style homes offering volume ceilings, gourmet kitchens, large master suites and 3-car garages, among many other upgrades. Many of these homes are located on larger lots and some have fantastic views.  Plan 1 is the popular single story, 2,400 approximate square foot home containing 4 BR’s and 2.5 BA’s. Plan 2, at approximately 3,123 square feet, contains 4 or 5 BR’s (builder option) and 3 BA’s. Plan 3 is even more flexible with a choice of either 3,326 or 3,566 sq. ft., again depending upon which builder option was selected and 4 or 5 BR’s with 3BA’s, plus an optional bonus room or 6th BR (including a 4th BA). Plan 4 contains approx. 3,519 sq. ft. and 4 BR’s, 3BA’s with a bonus room (or an optional 5th BR and 4th BA).

Over the past year the low and high price sales for Autumn Ridge was $845,000 and $1,157,000, respectively.

Enjoy the convenience of being close to everything including shopping, award winning schools, fabulous recreation facilities, parks, sports fields and more. Come home to Autumn Ridge.

Well, isn’t this just great! Thanks to Kevin Boer at 3Oceans and Drew “Zillow” Meyers for sharing this latest must-have technology - Sketchcast. Kevin calls it Etch-A-Sketch, and used his maiden Sketch-a-Blog voyage to discuss Bay Area real estate trends.

Like the hundred other great-idea-thingies that I have been meaning to toy with, this new one could have some really terrific applications. I just don’t know what they are yet. What I do know is that, in order to fully investigate the potential power of Sketchcast, I will now have to buy yet another electronic component - a sketch pad - which will come with yet another user’s manual and a vast assortment of cords which will, within moments of arrival at my home, be virtually indistinguishable from the 142 other cords and plugs and connectors in my “make it go” drawer.

We’re having a busy week, so Best Buy will have to wait. Despite this, I bravely forged ahead armed only with a mouse and absolutely nothing of substance to say. Next on the agenda is to find a way to employ the Sketchcast technology in a meaningful way.

Rather than supplement a previous post, I am going to bring this to the top. Yesterday I posted a link to a terrific video spoof produced by Lani Anglin and her husband Benn, as did many, many other bloggers across the country. Today, we learn this (posted by April Groves on behalf of Lani):

To me, the important thing to know is that the crazy kid in the funny video is my newly 24 year old little brother Aaron who died yesterday on impact. He was driving to my house (to make another silly video) and was driving with his wife (Aleisha Anglin, 25) and their two babies (Eleanor who turns 1 THIS week and McKenzie who is only 6 weeks old). Aleisha & Eleanor should be released today and McKenzie is in the ICU in improving condition. We have tons of family surrounding us and St. Thomas More parish is providing food this week for our entire family! Aaron was awesome and his marketing work can be found at http://benaaronanglin.carbonmade.com. He was confirmed in the Catholic faith last week, laughed his butt off at ICanHasCheezburger.com with me this week. We were born 18 months apart (Irish twins) and grew up as best friends with so many lame stories.

It is hard to know how to help when tragedy strikes someone you care about, but Lani offers this:

My brother and his wife are not rich by any stretch of the imagination and Aleisha has a very hard time ahead- if you or anyone else can think of any way to aim finances at her, she really needs it. Assisting in an optometry office is a great profession but pays very little- certainly not enough to cover a funeral, medical bills for three people and a life ahead as a single mother.

If anyone reads this and would like to reach out, feel free to send us an email. I am aware that others are putting together a donation site for the family, and I hope to have more information soon.

Our deepest sympathy goes out to all those touched by this tragedy.

(Edited: Here is how we can help).

My Manhattan BFF, Noah Rosenblatt, hit the big(ger) times this week with his New York Channel 4 media gig. You can see his uncut interview at Urban Digs.

Noah is a former equities trader (this will become quite apparent one nanosecond into his remarks), and is one of the brightest, most articulate agents people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. And, you wouldn’t know it, but he is hysterically funny.

This interview dealt with the Manhattan real estate market, of course, but at least a couple of his statements apply to our San Diego market as well.

Having your assets in line, having your debt-to-income ratio below 28%, having enough liquid assets to afford the transaction fees… and also having a four-plus year timeline to own: If all of these things mesh up and line up, it’s probably a good time to buy.

The corollary is that if you don’t have some money in the bank, if the payments don’t pencil out, and if you are not looking to enjoy the property for the mid- to long-term, maybe it’s not a super-great time to buy. But then, these have always been sound considerations when contemplating a purchase. Hopefully, some lessons were learned during this last real estate boom cycle.

The Carnival of Real Estate is up at For Sale By Locals. The Carnival of Real Estate recognizes real estate blogging efforts each week from around the country and, this week, the world.

In order to reflect the changing demographics of real estate, carnival submissions will be accepted in English, Spanish, and Portuguese this week and winners selected by language.

This week’s English Language winner was a much-deserved Ben Cotten who wrote the very funny post-I-wish-I-had-thought-of on How to Sell a House in Over 6 Months. Somehow, the judges felt my post on Property Inspections (which took “a close second” - yippee!) belonged in the English Language category as well, although my detractors would undoubtedly disagree. Next week, I have promised to resubmit the article in Hungarian.

There were also winners in the Spanish and Portuguese categories, but I have to disagree with the judges. These posts made absolutely NO sense to me.

Next week, judging will be hosted by the Mortgage Insider blog. Submit your blog articles here.