Strange that that chart includes high end for San Diego starting at 469 thousand. My reference to high end is the million dollar plus stuff, more particularly the multi-million dollar stuff.
My daughter works for a company that builds and markets high end retirement condo's across the country. They are quite dependent of older buyers who often must firstly sell their homes in prestigious neighborhoods. Again, multi-million dollar homes.
In the case of their San Diego property, sales slowed all year long last year, but got especially bad as the stock market crashed. Very recently, however, lower interest rates may be helping both the home sellers, and the condo developer. But it's too early to see this as a trend, especially - in my opinion - without a sustained recovery in stocks.
Having said that, I know nothing about the other segments of the real estate market in San Diego.
In Scottsdale, AZ, a generally higher income community for Arizona, the top end also slowed all year long last year, and there were indeed some foreclosures, but inventory and foreclosures did not really accelerate until the stock market turned down so strongly.
Now, homes that were selling for around 2.5 million in '07 can be found listed for about 1.5 million, or less.
By contract, the downturn in the broader Phoenix area market began in earnest in late '07, a year earlier.
VP in AZ |
