Our housing market might suck a little but it doesn't suck a lot.

So Dean Calbreath over at The Union Tribune writes his article about how our housing market isn't the worst it could be:

In a study released last week by the U.S. Council of Mayors, San Diego did not even make the Top 50 list of communities that will be hurt by the decline in home prices next year. In fact, it ranked 88th in a roster of 362 metropolitan areas nationwide. Which still puts us at the bad end of the scale, but nowhere near the worst.

And people run with it.

How's the San Diego real estate market doing? Not bad at all, according to a commentary article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, which purports that America's finest city is feeling better with regard to the real estate market than the rest of the country.

This prompts the question, who is Dean Calbreath, and what else is he the authority on that we can run with? Will he tell me what kind of tree I should get for Christmas? Will he let me know where the best cup of Hot Chocolate in San Diego is? Will he please let me know WHY it thinks it can rain in San Diego? Did Dean Calbreath sign off on the rain?!

Calbreath says: it's freaking expensive to live in SD.

Dean Calbreath from The Union Tribune says it's expensive to live in San Diego, not only that, but it's hard to find a "dream job" in the city as well. And to top it all off there has been a massive exodus out of San Diego because it's so hard to live here, what with no job and one of the highest median home prices in the country.

Over the past five years, far more people have moved out of San Diego than have moved in from other locales in the United States. (This doesn't include the continuing inflow of foreign immigrants, which is another story altogether.) According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there has been a net domestic outflow of more than 130,000 people leaving San Diego over the past six years.

Schweyer's poll found that when workers try to decide whether to relocate to another city, career and professional opportunities are usually the top concern – even higher than cost of living or housing. Which suggests that if we want to find buyers for those dream houses of ours, we might want to put more emphasis on creating the dream jobs that can afford them.

It's statistics time! Dean Calbreath says not to expect housing to bounce back that quickly.

Check it out. From Sign on San Diego's Dean Calbreath:

The median family income in San Diego County is $69,400, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That puts us slightly below the median family income of $73,700 in Madison, Wis.; $71,400 in Denver; $72,600 in Norwich, Conn.; or $72,800 in Worcester, Mass. – to cite some examples from HUD's database.


Although we make less money than the people in those cities, we pay more than twice as much for our housing. In San Diego, the median sale price of an existing single-family home in the second quarter was $614,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. Compare that with $223,500 in Madison, $255,200 in Denver, $276,600 in Norwich and $278,900 in Worcester.

Basically, this is what I learned from this op ed piece (which by the way you should read): Meadianly (that's not a word but I'm Managing Editor so I'm leaving it) San Diego doesn't pay for well, but we live by the beach, so we pay for that.

I once heard a lady say "I live on Macaroni and Cheese from Walmart, but I do it in SAN DIEGO."

Expect the housing market to stay... slow. I worry less about people not being able to buy houses then I do about the landlords looking around and going "oh wee, lets charge more money to those people who are making less then peole in freaking Wisconsin!"