San Diego Prices Decline

San Diego County home prices decline
By Jennifer Davies, UNION-TRIBUNE

Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:11 p.m.

Even with the horrific housing downturn, we here in San Diego are still pretty cocky about how our housing prices (typically) appreciate more quickly than, say, Dubuque, Iowa. Sure, we have our busts but we have our booms, too. Plus — the argument goes — we have one of the most desirable locales in the country with very little buildable land so our prices should outpace those less-glamourous areas.

But despite all that, San Diego doesn’t hold a candle to Dubuque, Springfield, Ill. or Buffalo, N.Y. when it comes to rising home prices, at least according to a recent report by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The agency, which oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, tracks home sales price information by looking at mortgages — both sales and refinances — acquired through those lenders. (The good thing about this index is that it compares how the same homes perform over time. The not-so good thing about it is that looks at only conforming loans of $417,000 so a wide swath of the local market isn’t included. Also, the data is way back from the second quarter.)

In the second quarter, the metro areas with the largest increases in home prices were Springfield, up 2.68 percent from a year ago; Dubuque, up 2.41 percent; San Jose, up 1.89 percent; Orange County, up 1.45 percent; and the Huntington-Ashland area near the borders of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio, which was up 1.40 percent.

San Diego, by way of comparison, ranked 50th of the 303 areas surveyed with a decrease in home prices of -1.05 percent.

But what is more interesting is the five-year appreciation numbers. Whereas San Diego County’s home prices are down more than 26 percent in that time frame, Dubuque, for instance, had a 13.67 increase. Other top performers include Shreveport, La., with price gains 15.75 percent; Amarillo, Tex.; up 15.39 percent; and Buffalo, up 13.60 percent.