What We Learned from the 2020 Housing Market
Looking at homes for sale in Encinitas, CA?
As of November 2020, homes for sale in Encinitas, CA are still in incredibly high demand. Compared year over year to November 2019, inventory is down 47.8%, while the median sales price is up 17.2%. We have seen a lot of buyers moving to San Diego from the Bay Area, specifically San Francisco, Marin, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Walnut Creek, and more. Now with more flexible and remote work environments, employees now have the ability to live wherever they want. People are opting to move to San Diego for nicer weather, better home prices, and more space.
Cities that have traditionally been vacation destinations are now becoming hot spots called “Zoom Towns” where employees can plant roots and work remotely. While San Diego is an ever-growing hub for research and biotech, with large corporations increasingly opening new offices here, it is still widely known as a travel destination for domestic and international vacationers. As a top U.S. destination, San Diego sees about 35.1 million visitors each year. Many of those visitors now have the flexibility from their companies to choose where they want to live, rather than live where they have to work.
Where are home buyers moving to San Diego coming from?
Since the pandemic started, we have had buyers move to San Diego from San Francisco, Marin, Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina, and New York.
Where are home sellers from San Diego moving to?
In contrast, we have helped people sell their San Diego homes and move to Oregon, Chicago, Arizona, New Jersey, Canada, and London.
What does this tell us about the 2021 housing market?
The end of the year is always a quiet time for home sales. Though we are still seeing a steady flow of properties going into escrow, there is a noticeable decrease in new listings in the MLS. We will start to see this pick up in January 2021, with a very active spring market. The spring market of 2020 was delayed due to the Covid-19 outbreak, but by the time summer came around the market was incredibly busy and it didn’t slow down until this December and will pick right back up on January 1st. What San Diego needs is more inventory to serve the high demand of buyers still looking to purchase with the incredibly low interest rates. All of the buyers who have been waiting for a few years to see some drop in the market prices likely won’t be seeing that for the foreseeable future. The backlog of buyers is only increasing, so likelihood of finding a “deal” in this San Diego market is remarkably low. As the Covid-19 vaccine becomes more widely available, we expect to see seller confidence increase and more properties becoming available to the public.
At this point, the hold-up for houses coming on the market could be a matter of sellers not knowing where to go. Or what they could buy for the price they get.