You're Still Comparing This Market to 2021. That's the Mistake.

I hear some version of this every week. "Rates will come back down eventually, right?" or "Isn't the market supposed to slow down more than this?" Almost always, the comparison happening underneath the question is 2021. And 2021 is exactly the wrong year to measure anything against. Here are the mistakes that comparison keeps causing, on both sides of a transaction.

Mistake 1: Treating "the San Diego market" as one number

Check three sources this week and you'll get three different median prices for the same month, and none of them are wrong. One measures the city, another measures the whole county. One includes condos and townhomes in the average, another looks at detached homes only. One is reporting last month's closes, another is a rolling three-month window. County-wide, the median sat around $925,000 this spring. Depending on which source, which geography, and which property mix you're looking at, you'll see numbers meaningfully higher or lower than that same week. Where people get stuck is treating a single headline number as the market, instead of asking what it's actually measuring.

Mistake 2: Waiting for rates to go back to what they were

The 30-year conforming rate has been sitting in the mid-6% range this year. That feels high next to 2021, when a huge number of homeowners locked in well under 5%, plenty under 3%. But 2021 wasn't a normal year to benchmark against, it was a historic anomaly created by emergency-era monetary policy. Waiting for a repeat of it isn't a strategy, it's a bet against the odds. This is the part most buyers miss: the comparison that actually matters isn't this year against 2021. It's this year against whatever next year looks like, which nobody can promise will be lower.

Mistake 3: Not realizing this is two markets, not one

Detached homes and condos are behaving almost like separate markets right now. Detached inventory has been running sharply below last year's levels, tight enough to keep pricing firm. Condo and townhome inventory has been rising instead, softer, more room to negotiate. If you're reading headline market coverage that blends both together and applying it to a search that's only one or the other, the read you're getting doesn't match what you'll actually experience on a showing.

Mistake 4: The 2021 rate lock is quietly shrinking the whole market

Here's the mechanism behind mistake 3, and it explains a lot of the tight detached inventory specifically. Homeowners who bought or refinanced into a rate under 5% are sitting on something valuable, and moving means giving it up. Sell a home in the $1.5 million range at a 3% rate and buy something comparable at today's rates, and the monthly payment jump can run over $1,600. Most owners in that position simply don't move unless something forces the decision. That's not a temporary quirk. It's actively shaping how few detached homes come to market at all right now, which is part of why inventory in that segment keeps running behind prior years even as overall sales activity holds up.

Ask Your Lender This

If the 2021 comparison is part of what's holding your decision up, bring this to your loan officer directly:

• "Based on where rates actually are today, what does my realistic monthly payment look like, not what I remember from a few years ago?"
• "If rates ease later this year, do I have a refinance or float-down path instead of waiting to buy?"

What this actually means if you're buying or selling now

None of this is a case for rushing. It's a case for measuring against the market you're actually in, not the one that existed for a narrow window a few years ago. For veterans and military buyers on a PCS timeline especially, waiting for a version of 2021 to return usually means waiting past a window that actually works, whether that's a specific school year, a specific report date, or simply your own readiness. First-time buyers get caught in this the most, since 2021 is often the last market they remember clearly, even though it's the least representative year to plan around.

What comparison have you been making without realizing it? Rates, prices, how fast things are moving, tell me what's actually shaping your decision right now in the comments.

If you want your specific numbers run against what's actually happening in San Diego North County right now, not a headline from somewhere else, reach out here and we'll look at your real options. More market breakdowns like this live on the blog.

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