Local markets spotlights 5 different areas across the country, showcasing what is uniquely happening in those housing markets. Local real estate agents, loan officers and appraisers share what characteristics are currently defining their housing markets.
San Diego, California
San Diego’s growing economic divisions come through in the city’s housing market. A San Diego Union-Tribune story from this August noted that the city’s unemployment rate hovers around 7%, higher than the national rate of 5.2% at that time, as many leisure and hospitality workers remained sidelined. However, venture capital money is at an all-time high, specifically funding biotech and life science companies. “There’s been a real surge in life sciences and biotech,” said Ross Clark, a Compass agent based in San Diego’s tony La Jolla neighborhood. And that’s created a demand for luxury housing, Clark said, noting that San Diego home prices climbed 20% the past year as neighborhoods gentrify left and right. According to an OJO Labs study, San Diego, whose median home price was $750,000 in September, is more unaffordable to its current residents than Los Angeles.
Honolulu, Hawaii
An agent for 33 years, Anne Hogan Perry sells luxury homes in Honolulu, Maui and Kauai and says that she is enjoying an unprecedented influx of homebuyers who previously lived in New York or Los Angeles for their jobs. “We have started to see work not be so rigid and time specific,” said Perry, who is an agent at Compass. “I sold a home to a hedge fund guy in New York. Now he just gets up at 4, gets done with work at noon and goes to the beach.” The agent said rich “mainland” residents replaced international buyers, who are restricted in their travel amid the pandemic. But overall demand is on the rise. That’s reflected in home prices, where the median Honolulu home sold for $975,000 in the second quarter of 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors, a climb of 20% year-over-year. <<<Story continued on HousingWire.com
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