If you’ve made San Diego real estate part of your estate in the past few years, then things are looking good.  Whether it be your home, vacation home or investment property, values are on the rise.  According to the S&P / Case-Schiller Home Price Index, San Diego was ranked as the # 2 market for month over month price gains in the United States.

With 9 straight months of price increases, including a rise of 1.3% from September to October, San Diego Real Estate is on fire!  Keep in mind the study bundles San Diego as a whole, but select markets have performed even better.   According to Dataquick News, one of the largest compilers of Real Estate Data in the nation, Downtown San Diego has seen a rise of 17.7% from this time last year!

Real Estate San Diego

Up and coming neighborhoods, like Golden Hill, have seen even higher increases because the prices to acquire were so much lower.  Between December 2011 and December 2012, Golden Hill saw an increase of 30.8% and Northpark saw increases of 38.7% in the same period.  Keep in mind that some of the data is skewed because there have been a number of investor groups purchasing homes, improving them and doing flips so the data doesn’t back out the capital improvements.

The rise in price we see in the downtown market gives us a good market indicator because most of the properties there were built in 2003 through 2007 so the capital improvements on any flips would likely include simple items like new paint, carpet or wood floors, appliances and in some cases replacing tile counters with granite.  Considering the cost to rennovate a property in downtown, I would conclude that we have seen about a 12% increase to prices…not bad at 1% per month.  If you owned a $500,000 condo in January of 2012, then one could estimate that it would be worth about $560,000 in the end of December of the same year.

With interest rates at all time lows and prices still relatively low, it’s still a great time to purchase San Diego real estate.  The inventory has been extremely low and purchasing hasn’t been as easy as one might think.  If you want to invest, it’s best to get started sooner rather than later and get a solid agent will have the strenght to get you hooked into a great home or investment.

If you are looking for expert guidance for real estate in the San Diego market, give us a call: 619-309-8011