Summit predicts housing recovery

RANCHO SANTA FE — At last year’s Annual Conversation Real Estate Summit, the panel that produces the North County San Diego HomeDex, predicted doom and gloom for the housing market.
This year, however, there is a ray of hope for 2011.
That was the report given to the Association at its March 17 meeting by Ivan Holler, the Association’s administrator, who sits on the panel.
“Residential market trends appear to be on a slow track to recovery,” Holler said.
The summit brings together experts from real estate, water, energy and money, and follows real estate trends. The summit is hosted by the Cal State San Marcos and the North County Association of Realtors.
Their optimistic predictions were determined by 2010 year-end statisticsm which were shared at its fifth annual meeting held recently at The California Center for the Arts in Escondido.
Holler said the recovery depends on many things including the federal budget deficit and inflation.
“Inflation is expected to remain fairly low through most of this year, but will accelerate next year,” Holler said.
“Unemployment seems to be inching downward,” he said.
It is still very hard to buy a house because banks are still holding onto money.
“Instead of a loan application, its a loan interrogation,” he said.
He said that most of the units sold during the past year have been under $300,000.
The next highest in sales rate were in the $500,000 to $600,000 range. In homes that sell in the $1.5 million and more range, the number is up slightly up from 2009.
“We did see a slight uptick in 2010,” Holler said.
The median price for homes in North County increased by 0.84 percent.
The number of days a home stayed on the market decreased slightly from 36 to 34, the report said.
In April 2010, 729 homes were sold, down 1.62 percent from March 2010.
The median prices of single-family detached homes by zip code range from $2 million to $2.5 million in Rancho Santa Fe to under $500,000 in Vista.
“Recovery will be remain very location specific,” he said, pointing out that some areas like Temecula will continue to be outpaced by other areas.
Holler is in very good company on the panel, which included Robert Brown, professor of economics at Cal State San Marcos; Gary London, Realty advisor; Peter Maclaggan, president of Poseidon Resource Corporation; Lynn Reaser Ph,D, noted economist; Debra Reed, executive vice president of Sempra Energy; Ken Weinberg, San Diego County Water Authority; and Borre Winckel of the Building Institute of San Diego County.