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Quality of Life

Home Prices Continue Their Upward March

A local home for sale in San Diego.
Sarah Kovash
A local home for sale in San Diego.

The price of homes in San Diego increased by 13.7 percent in November compared to a year before, continuing to reflect a rebounding housing market. This latest look at home prices comes from housing analysts at DataQuick.

The number of home sales in San Diego last month increased by 22 percent from November 2011. Meanwhile, home prices were up throughout Southern California. DataQuick reports an overall price increase of just under 17 percent for all of Southern California.

The median price of a home in Southern California last month was $321,000. That number was $275,000 a year before.

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John Karevoll of DataQuick said the change in San Diego and regional home prices was due to two factors: appreciating values and a “rebalancing” market.

He said markets in recent years were very unbalanced due to the large numbers of distressed properties going on sale for very low prices. Sales of foreclosed properties made up more than a third of the Southern Californian resale home market a year ago. Last month those sales made up only 15.3 percent.

“The distressed part of the market – even though it’s still active and there are still a lot of deeply discounted homes – that’s not dominating the market like it did a year ago,” said Karevoll. He added that we’re seeing a lot more sales activity in the mid-market and the up-market.

But homes in Southern California are also gaining value. Karevoll said that's caused by high demand and low supply.

“Clearly, inventory is a huge issue. There just aren’t enough homes for sale out there, and there are numerous buyers chasing each home,” he said.

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DataQuick’s November numbers also show a lot of investors entering the market, resulting in a large number of cash sales of homes. But Karevoll said that while the San Diego housing market is clearly off the bottom, it remains a long way away from being a home market that would have been considered “normal” in past years.