Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
Home prices in San Diego have increased five consecutive months despite a national trend of housing costs leveling out. According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, price growth has been slowing consistently for the past 15 months. It seems that homes are becoming more affordable everywhere—except on the west coast.
Unfortunately, this problem isn’t likely to be resolved anytime soon. According to Phillip Murphy, the managing director at Dow Jones Indices, “It is likely that current rates of change will generally be sustained barring an economic downturn.”
Even though the clear reason for this growing unaffordability is the inability to build new houses in San Diego due to intrusive government bureaucracy, most politicians and city leaders are unwilling to properly address the issue. Sean Karafin, aside from being vice president of policy and economic research at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, is also one of the only people willing to acknowledge the true cause of this problem.
“For the San Diego region to continue its role as a leader in economic growth and job creation, we must have enough housing at prices that make sense for working families. To do that, we must address regulatory hurdles that hinder home building,” Karafin explained.
This advice is likely to fall on deaf ears given the fact that San Diego’s government isn’t exactly laissez-faire. One thing is for certain, however, which is that San Diego political leaders must do better in addressing the crisis of housing affordability in the region.
