Home-Price Leader Sees Slight Drop

The L.A.Times reports:

San Diego County kicked off California's housing boom six years ago with dramatic price rises and became one of the nation's hottest real estate markets.

Now it has attained a more dubious distinction: It's the first major California real estate market to see its median home price fall below year-earlier levels, according to data released Wednesday.


Another once-sizzling market, Los Angeles County, saw home prices in June rise at their slowest year-over-year rate since 2001.

San Diego County's median price — the point at which half of all homes sold for more, half for less — for new and existing homes in June was 1% lower than a year ago, a stark contrast to the 20%-plus annual gains it was posting during the peak of the boom two years ago, according to data released by DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla-based real estate research firm.

It was the first time the county had suffered a decline in year-over-year prices since July 1996, and means that many people who have bought homes since June 2005 have no equity increases.

It appears that real estate can't go up 100% every five years.A change in the trend,in any market,is sideways price movement.