Catherine asked what I thought about the next 1-2 years of real estate.

First let’s discuss why real estate in the future won’t be like it’s been in the past – we’re out of dirt.  Here’s my conversation with Bill Davidson in 2012 about the future of home-building in San Diego:

This is from 2015:

“We’ll be the Bay Area in no time,” said Borre Winckel, president and CEO of the Building Industry Association of San Diego. “We can offer very few product lines for the middle-class buyer.”

San Francisco was once a quirky, counter-cultural city that was home to a bevy of activists, artists and writers. But that city is vanishing because of sky-high housing costs. Now, only the elite can afford to live in the city and, like in Manhattan, low- and middle-income workers are forced to live further afield and make long commutes to their jobs.

San Diego is not far behind. It is already the nation’s fifth most expensive housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors. Only an estimated 25 percent of households can afford the median home price.

Even more troubling, most of the apartment units under construction are higher end, catering to wealthier millennials.

“My lament is that we’re royally screwing the housing opportunity for the middle class and young people,” Winckel said.

San Diego’s population grew by 159,000 people from 2010 to 2014, but the region added only 22,000 housing units in that time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

With today’s supply and demand being so out of whack, the outcome is being determined by money.  Our home prices have risen steadily over the last ten years (which has never happened, at least since I’ve been around), and it looks like it will continue.

It’s the basis for any forecast, and with that said, let’s explore what could happen, shall we?