San Diego Real Estate – A Cacophony of Data

by Don Reedy, San Diego, CA

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

I love the scene from the “Princess Bride” where they undergo a battle of wits. Very funny scene, and way too reminiscent of popular conversations regarding the housing market in general and the San Diego housing market specifically.

So, How’s the Housing Market Doing in San Diego?

There’s no shortage of data or opinions, of course.  Here a just a couple of places and opinions I found interesting and potentially useful.  First, Here’s DataQuick’s (OMG lengthy) view of the San Diego data.  Quite a bit of stuff in here, all of which seem to indicate that the San Diego market might be recovering slightly.  But right on the heels of the DataQuick report is an article from MSNBC, a report that has  a rather dim view of San Diego’s recovery.

So, with my own opinions of the San Diego market in my head I reviewed a couple of local real estate experts to see what they thought. First a take on one of the neighborhoods in San Diego by Kris Berg.  Her numbers are easier for me to read than DataQuicks, and no one likes to be called a sick real estate market by anyone.  And here’s our good friend Jeff Brown with his take on analyzing real estate data.  Jeff is speaking to the choir in me when he talks about analyzing.  He is asking if the data and the way it is analyzed is as important at the analyst doing the organizing.

 My Take on San Diego Real Estate

My opinion comes after this concerto, aptly named “Cacophony”, but sweet music to my ears, and which I’ll explain below.  Listen to this now.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?  A cacophony of sounds, but your head and your heart allow you to analyze and put these sounds together so that they not only make sense, but are appealing and fun to spend time with.

Which Brings Me to My Opinion on the San Diego Real Estate

Market

• When you want to know if there’s gas in the coal mine….you send down a bird.
• If you see smoke, you know’s there’s fire….but how hot is that fire?
• If it walks, quacks and…you know….it’s a duck.
• “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.”  (Will Rogers)
• See it.  Hit it.

Yep, this is what you paid to read.  Some old fashioned advice about skinning cats, and some advice for each of you who are real estate pros.  And that advice is that it’s up to you to consume all the data, analyze all the data, taste the food at every restaurant, smell the grass at every playground, walk the railroad tracks at 10 p.m., put your soda down and go into art shops and old shoe repair places.  It’s up to you to be the analyst that Jeff Brown wants you to be, the historian that Kris wants you to be, and the ultimate best at putting together a synergistic and cohesive body of knowledge (not info…) that your current or future clients can take to the bank.

San Diego real estate is a cacophony of data, but each of you has a guitar in hand, and an audience who wants to listen to the concerto, not all the notes.  In your area, learn the notes, and then put them together to make a concerto that clients will turn to.  Every real estate market has a sound that you can harness, and data that clients desperately want to hear.  Conduct yourself (and your data) like a professional, and the only cacophony you’ll hear is the phone ringing with new clients.