Every few weeks a headline tells San Diego the market is cooling. Homes are sitting longer, there are more price cuts, and buyers are finally getting a break. Some of that is true. It's just not happening at the price you're shopping.
Those reports roll everything into one number. A $3 million house in Rancho Santa Fe that's been sitting since August counts the same as a two-bedroom condo in Mira Mesa that got four offers in a week. Average them together and you get "cooling." Pull them apart and you get two different markets.
Here's what I've seen this fall. The upper end has loosened up. There's more inventory and more reductions, and sellers will negotiate on repairs and closing costs. The entry level, roughly under $800,000 for condos and townhomes, hasn't moved nearly as much. There are still fewer listings, and the clean ones still go fast.
Clairemont is a good example. It's full of 1950s single-story ranches that first-time buyers love. The updated ones near Balboa Avenue, priced around a million, are still pulling multiple offers. The ones two blocks over that need a new roof and an electrical panel? Those sit. Those sellers are listening.
So what does that mean for you before the end of the year?
Don't walk in lowballing because you read that the market is soft. I've watched a buyer lose a house they really wanted by offering 5% under on a well-priced listing, all because of a headline. The seller had two other offers by Sunday.
Do look hard at the homes that have been sitting in your range. Thirty-plus days on market in a neighborhood where most things sell in ten is a signal. That's where your leverage is, and it's real leverage: price, credits, a longer inspection window.
I'll also say something some agents won't. For most first-time buyers here, waiting for prices to drop is the wrong plan right now. Prices are softening above your range, not in it. Wait until spring and you're competing with everyone else who waited, in the busiest season of the year.
The countywide number won't tell you much. What sold on your target streets in the last 60 days will. Send me your price range and the two neighborhoods you keep refreshing on Zillow, and I'll pull exactly that.