San Diego realtor Kyle Whissel breaks down the leading indicators of the San Diego Housing Market for the month of August 2021.
San Diego Market Update for August 2021
What's going on in the San Diego real estate market here in August of 2021? Hey there, it's Kyle with the Whissel Realty Group and today we're going to talk a little bit about what's going on in the San Diego real estate market here in August of 2021. And for the first time in a long time, we're getting some change in the market.
A Slight Change in the Market
I feel like a broken record 'cause I'm saying the exact same thing over and over and over again. Today, we got some new news for you, so I'm excited for this update. As always, when we shoot these videos, I want to give you the information that the typical media is not giving you because the typical media is giving you data that's two, three, four months delayed. I want to give you the most relevant data possible and that data is what's happening in the market today so that you make make an educated decision on whether you should be buying, selling, or investing here in San Diego.
Leading Indicators
First piece of data that we like to look at is the number of new homes coming on to the market for sale. Now, this number hasn't changed a whole lot. This is down 12.6% from the same time a year ago. That's been pretty consistent. We've seen the number of new homes coming on the market well below the number of new homes that came on the market a year ago. Not a lot of change there. The next number is where the big change has been. Every month for as long as I can remember, it feels like at least a year, maybe two years, the number of homes that have gone off the market or gone pending has been up.
What we've been seeing is less homes coming on the market and more homes going off the market, which has been shrinking the inventory. For the first time in a long time, the number of homes that have gone off the market or gone pending is actually down to the tune of 8.3%. So we still had less homes come on the market than went pending, so we still shrank the inventory a little bit, but we've been shrinking the inventory a lot for the last few months.
For the first time, we actually saw a little bit of a decrease in the number of homes that have gone off the market or gone pending. So something to keep an eye on, it could just be a fluke thing. Part of my personal belief, we're here in California, I know that when the government said COVID's going to end on June 15th, we all said, "Yeah right, I don't believe you." And then lo and behold, they actually kind of ended COVID on June 15th and pretty much opened everything back up. I think it was a big surprise for people. But once people realized, like, oh my gosh, they opened things back up again, people were like, "Oh, let's still take that vacation now." Like, "We're free." I know when I've been looking on my social media feeds, on Facebook and Instagram, everybody's on vacation.
They're in Hawaii, they're up in Alaska, they're all over the place, traveling and going to baseball games around the country and doing fun stuff, far more people than normal because there's a lot of pent up demand to go vacationing. So my personal belief is the reason we've seen that pending number decrease for the first time in a long time is people just took a break from buying to go on vacation and enjoy a little post-COVID vacation. So when we talk about the next two numbers, these are going to be a little bit skewed because supply is down 50% from the same time a year ago and the time it takes to sell a home is down 42% from this time a year ago.
But those are actually, the number of days its taken for a home to sell has actually creeped up a little bit and the total number of homes for sale has creeped up a little bit because, again, you had less homes go pending. So it's going to be something we definitely want to keep an eye on here over the next couple of months. Is this a kind of fluky thing because of the post-COVID pent up demand for a vacation or are we seeing a market trend? It's going to be interesting. My personal opinion, I think that this is more of a pent up demand for vacation. We've all had a little bit of time between June 15th and most kids start school in the middle of August, so we've all had this kind of one to two month window to go get a vacation in. That's my personal belief of why you're seeing that pending number go down, but something you make sure to stay tuned to the videos that we put out there so we could see if this trend continues or not.
With all of that said, what does this mean? If you are thinking about buying a home what should you be doing? I think right now is an amazing time to buy. I think this is the best opportunity you've had to buy in a while because, as I mentioned, the number of homes going pending or off the market is down. A lot of buyers are taking a breather, they're going on vacation, so where we were seeing a lot of homes still getting 10, 20, 30 offers a few months ago, now they're maybe getting one, two, three offers so it's creating a little bit more opportunity. I actually just put an offer in on a home in Nashville today and in Nashville two months ago, there was 40 offers, today there's four on the same type of house.
I'm trying to take advantage of it myself right now because I believe while everybody is taking a breather, that's my chance to pounce and capitalize on the opportunity. If you're thinking about selling, what does this mean for you? It's going to depend. If you're thinking about selling and moving up to a new home, I think you take advantage of it because I think you're going to have a little bit more opportunity on that new home that you want to buy. If you're thinking about selling and you're getting out of the area, I think you capitalize on it, right? You're going to get a great price for the home and can get the heck out of here. The person who I don't think it makes sense to sell is the person who's thinking of selling and you're going to then rent. I'm not a fan of that at all. I still have a very strong belief that values are going to continue to rise, even though the number of people buying is down a little bit, prices are still going up. I think maybe we're not going to see 2% a month appreciation like we've been seeing, maybe we're going to see 1%.
But that's 1% appreciation. I would like to get 1% appreciation far more than I'd like to get the annual five or 10% rental increase so I think if you're thinking about selling and renting, I might not do that. I might hold on to that a little bit longer, continue to ride until we start to see values crest, then maybe you unload that property. Is it going to happen? I don't know. When is it going to happen? I don't know. But I don't think it's happening any time soon. I think you're going to continue to see a 1% increase.
That's what I got for you. I'm excited, I finally get to have something new in one of these market updates. If you're watching this, you're thinking about buying, selling, investing, our team would love the opportunity to help you out. Give us a call, shoot us a message. We'd love that opportunity. Phone number's down below.
