"well, leaving aside the fact that you are comparing seven years of population growth to one year of housing stock growth
True, I should have made that more clear, I figured you would see that I wasn't comparing like for like and draw an extrapolation, I looked for the net housing stock increase for those years and couldn't find it... I am guessing an increase of 10,000 units for the increase of 22,000 people. (A high percentage of which are working singles...) Yep cheap money drove the prices up, but cheap money is still around and the economy is markedly better than 3 years ago. I want to see the prices drop but I feel we need a trigger event or events.
i will cede you the point that SF is a very special place and housing will always be in high demand and expensive compared to most areas of the country. but the very slight rise in jobs and population over more than half a decade is not the reason prices rose. they rose because of a bubble.
No argument there, but for the prices to roll back to those of 5 years ago I think we will have to see interest rates around 50% higher than we have now.. otherwise, in my opinion, a slow grind down.
<<<if you look at the Bay Area as a whole, there has actually been an INCREASE in the amount of housing stock per capita this decade. e.g., for Santa Clara County:
"Supply is up, and the average family income fell 2.3% from 2001 to 2004, so prices are violating the most basic assumptions about supply and demand.
The www.census.gov site has data for Santa Clara County for the years 2000-2003 which shows that the number of housing units went up at the same time that the population decreased:
year units people
2000 580868 / 1686474 = 0.344 housing units per person
2001 587013 / 1692299 = 0.346
2002 592494 / 1677426 = 0.353
2003 596526 / 1678421 = 0.355
So housing supply in Santa Clara County increased 3% per person during those years. There is an oversupply compared to a few years ago, when prices were lower."
patrick.net;
His stats for employment are dated. Early 2003 was the Nadir of the tech crash. The freeways are crowded again and rents, salaries, and bonuses are rising. I agree that many things can knock the wind out but it still appears we are grinding down slowly. (I tried finding the information about housing stock on the census website but didn't find the county by county information.. perhaps I will send him an email.. this is handy stuff....)
I think we are basically on the same page for the SF Bay Area market (I sold my property last year am currently looking but at this point far away from buying...) but disagree as to how prices will drop and what will trigger that drop. |
