San Diego is shifting its attention toward multifamily construction. The county will add 3,000 new apartments this year, but only 1,545 newly built single-family houses.
The Los Angeles Times reports that single-family homes in San Diego are vanishing, as production has dipped significantly from the boom times last decade. In 2004, 9,555 single-family permits were issued.
Developers are running into pushback from community groups about large housing developments. Local economists are having problems predicting whether aging Baby Boomers will sell or stay, and they say that potential Millennial buyers don’t consider homeownership a priority.
Without more supply, the homes that are coming onto the market are increasingly scarce — and expensive. Most of the new homes coming out this year sell for $1 million or above, outpacing November’s median home price for a new house, $651,500. They are also fairly large — an average 3,147-square-feet — 17 percent bigger than the average size of an American home built in 2015, said the U.S. Census.
