Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 10:41 AM
SD Population Increases
from the U-T:
SAN DIEGO — Spurred by San Diego County’s falling home prices, more people are moving into San Diego than leaving for other counties and states for the first time in five years.
According to population estimates from the state Department of Finance for the 12 months ending July 1, net domestic migration rose 3,032, compared with a decline of 3,373 the year before.
Adding the natural increase of births minus deaths and continued influx of international migrants, the county population rose 46,634, or 1.5 percent to 3,161,477, the highest one-year boost since 2002.
“That’s quite an accomplishment,” state demographer Linda Gage said. “The state certainly had a (sustained) level of out-migration last year. San Diego is more unusual in having that (domestic migration) turnaround.”
The state lost 135,173 residents to other states and nations in 2007-8, about the same as the year before. But because of a net increase of international migration and more births than deaths, the overall state population rose 435,905 to top the 38 million mark for the first time.
San Diego State University geography professor John Weeks said the shift in San Diego’s migration pattern could be an early sign of a bottoming out of San Diego’s housing slide and a signal that the economy might pick up here earlier than elsewhere.
“If times are good relative to other places, even if they are not as good as five years ago, then we’ll see some returned migration to San Diego,” he said, “and that will be indicative of better times here than elsewhere.”
Full story here:
Posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 10:41 AM in Local Flavor | 10 Comments » | 
Email
| 
Print
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What are all these new residents doing for a living? They sure aren’t working in construction, real estate or mortgages.
GeneK | December 19th, 2008 at 11:02 amsquaters?
=D
Ryan | December 19th, 2008 at 11:19 amI can hear the NAR cheerleaders now!
SD_Coastal | December 19th, 2008 at 11:41 amActually, with interest rates low like they are, I would expect mortgage brokers to be pretty busy. And lenders need additional staff to process all of these foreclosures and short sales. Construction and RE are definitely hurting though.
That SDSU guy may be right – when people start moving back here, housing prices would almost have to turn around due to increased demand. Or at least, they’ll be grabbing some REO inventory, reducing the turnaround timetable.
Kwaping | December 19th, 2008 at 11:47 amBando!
Rob Dawg | December 19th, 2008 at 11:59 am>>What are all these new residents doing for a living? They sure aren’t working in construction, real estate or mortgages<<
I guess most of them are retired, voluntarily or involuntarily. They are moving in simply for the good weather, golf, and beaches….
george8 | December 19th, 2008 at 12:36 pmFishy. I suspect the only people who ‘returned’ last year and those whose Temecula McMansion gambles didn’t pan out so well.
BO | December 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pmI’d like to see the population numbers compared to the number of total housing units. The last 5 years have seen a strong building boom, probably out-pacing the slow increase in population.
Per-capita income would be another useful metric to plot.
Jakob | December 19th, 2008 at 1:39 pmCalifornia: the birthing pool of America. It’s like where all those turtles get born at a beach, and the first chance they get they rush for the ocean and live out their lives there. Then after living out their life it’s time to lay eggs back at the beach.
BDiego | December 19th, 2008 at 3:27 pmAnd just who is qualifying for all those great low interest loans the banks are obviously eager to make? And what bullet proof properties are all these buyers looking at that won’t see a further decrease in price?
Just curious. Enlighten me.
ice weasel | December 19th, 2008 at 6:40 pm