After a challenging year in 2009, the real estate market in San Diego County has seen much improvement in this first quarter of 2010. Within the first three months, the median price has improved month over month for both condos and single-family houses, and the year-to-date median price for all properties is significantly higher than it was in 2009. Best of all, even with higher prices, there are still large numbers of properties being sold and being sold quickly. In the Pacific Beach area, we are seeing many of the same improvements. However, there are some deviations from the county trends because of the elevated price range and the large amount of attached properties in the area. Here’s a detailed analysis of what we’ve been seeing in Pacific Beach for the past three months and some insights into what we expect to see in the months to follow. For both attached properties and single-family homes, Pacific Beach continues to sell properties at a much higher median price than most parts of the county. The year-to-date median price for Pacific Beach detached homes is $703,000 and for attached it is $340,000. These numbers are significantly higher than the county’s, which are $375,000 and $215,000, respectively. Also, unlike the rest of the San Diego, Pacific Beach’s highest median price was actually in January, when the rest of the county was at its lowest. Since then, 92109 saw a dip in prices in February and then another increase in March. The good news is that detached properties in Pacific Beach almost climbed back up to their January median price during March. However, attached were still almost $100,000 lower than the January high. This is not an indicator of an unhealthy market; rather it just shows us that the January numbers were unusually high, and that Pacific Beach’s median price for attached properties will likely stay close to 400,000 for the next few months. One trend that Pacific Beach and the county shared was an increase in the number of sold detached properties month over month throughout the first quarter. San Diego sold listings increased every month, selling a substantially larger amount of these properties in March, and Pacific Beach followed this trend to a less-drastic degree. Sales of attached homes in the area also have increased since January, reaching their highest point in March. The heightened number of sold listings is likely a result of San Diegans trying to take advantage of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which ended April 30. As the window closed for Californians to take advantage of $18,000 in tax credits, we predict that we will have seen even more sales in April and that numbers will remain high in the following months. Not only has Pacific Beach seen an increase in its number of sold listings in this first quarter, but the area has also stayed consistently above the average in number of sold attached properties per month and on par with the average of sold detached properties per month. Across the county, the average ZIP Code sold about 14 attached homes per month. For Pacific Beach, the average was 19 attached homes per month. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise to most people in the area, since there is such a large amount of this type of inventory. However, it is encouraging to see that such properties are still selling. In addition, Pacific Beach was right on par with the county average of homes sold per month, which is currently about eight homes per ZIP Code. Overall, this tells us that all types of properties are selling in Pacific Beach, despite the higher cost of ownership. For those who are planning on taking advantage of this active local market by selling a property, it would be wise to be prepared for a longer process. Across the board it appears that properties in Pacific Beach stay on the market longer than the rest of county. The county’s year-to-date average for attached properties is 79 days on the market and for detached properties it is slightly less at 71 days. The average days on the market for Pacific Beach properties isn’t too far off county averages, at 82 days. But the average for attached properties is quite a bit different. In Pacific Beach the year-to-date average is 115 days on the market, coming out to more than a month longer than the county’s average. All in all, it looks like the first quarter of 2010 was off to a good start for Pacific Beach. Median price remains high for both attached and detached homes and all types of properties are selling in large numbers. In short, people are buying and at a fair price. So what are we predicting for the next few months? It is likely that April will continue to be a busy month for the entire county, as everyone tries to close deals before the federal tax credit comes to an end. We’ll probably see less of a spike in the Pacific Beach area though, as fewer of the properties fall into the first-time home buyer price range, however, the numbers are likely to still be high. As we enter into May, the official home buying season kicks off and we predict that large numbers of properties will continue to sell at healthy prices. In essence, the next few months should be good for everyone, both buyers and sellers as our county’s already high level of demand increases even more.