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JONATHAN LANSNER SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ECONOMY
S.D. County home sales hit record low
Data shows only 11 percent of prospective homebuyers in the county have the finances to qualify for a property like this one in Clairemont, which listed for $1.1 million on Zillow in May. K.C. Alfred / U-T file Image
The cost of homebuying is so insane that San Diego County’s sales are running at the slowest pace in records dating back 36 years.
My trusty spreadsheet looked at two-year periods of sales from CoreLogic stats stretching back to 1988 to measure how much the local housing market has chilled. Remember that in March 2022, the Federal Reserve began its war on inflation using higher interest rates. Those moves essentially doubled mortgage rates to the 7 percent range.
The pinch
Only 59,146 San Diego County residences were sold in the 24 months ending in April, the slowest two years on record. This was the fifth straight month an all-time sales low was hit.
April’s homebuying pace is 34 percent below the 36-year average. It’s also 12 percent less than the prepandemic sales low of 66,845 in September 1996 — amid the region’s mid-1990s housing slump.
Affordability is the current culprit. Only 11 percent of San Diego County households have the financial strength to qualify to buy, according to California Association of Realtors estimates.
Mortgage rates at 20-year highs plus stubbornly high prices killed many house hunter dreams. CoreLogic’s April median of $880,000 is up 7 percent over two years after 38 percent gains in 2020-22.
Regionally speaking
It’s equally slow across the six-county region.
Only 357,486 Southern California residences were sold in the 24 months ending in April, the slowest two years on record and the sixth consecutive month of an all-time low.
Sales ran 33 percent below the 36-year average and 10 percent less than the prepandemic sales low of 399,178 in March 2009.
It’s no help that April’s median of $760,000 was up 1 percent over two years after 38 percent gains in 2020-22. Thus, more affordability headaches: Just 15 percent of Southern California households can qualify to buy, according to Realtors’ math.
Postscript
How can some observers call this a hot market? Well, while a slim number of houses sell, they do seem to go quickly.
San Diego County’s single-family houses lasted only 15 days on the market in the first four months of this year, Realtors’ stats show — that’s 16 days faster than the average sales speed since 2000.
Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com .