The real estate market in San Diego is exhibiting signs of recovery even in the face of 10% unemployment. Sales activity and prices are increasing. Our population in San Diego county increases by more than 35,000 each year even though an exodus of people continues. This seems primarily due to job losses in the building industry. Nonetheless, if we were trying to meet the needs of the growing population we should by all rights be building about 15,000 homes per year. In 2008 we built 3,725 homes. This year we'll build less than 2,000 and that's mostly multi-family and fire replacement homes.

Over the past decade statistics from the San Diego MLS show combined sales of single-family homes ...