Urban condo buyers in San Diego have begun a mass jump off the fence as condo sales in the city have jumped 44 percent in January 2009, compared to January a year ago. Fidelity Pacific Real Estate reports the surge, which puts the number of sales at its highest monthly level in five years.

"The strong pending activity in January indicates that February sales should continue the pattern of increasing sales," according to the blog, pointing out that the condo market in San Diego has been a bit insulated from the foreclosure traffic across the state.

"Downtown has more than minimal foreclosure activity. There are 105 Notice of Defaults, 44 Auctions scheduled and 58 bank owned properties for a total of 207 condos in the foreclosure process. If these numbers start to increase significantly the more downward price pressure will come to happen."

While median home sales prices have dropped more than 34 percent in the San Diego market, blogger Schahrzad Berkland says median prices don’t necessarily give a pure picture of pricing in the area: "Just as the median price overstated the prices during the first two years of the house price decline, because the low end fell first and the sales were mainly the higher-priced homes, the median price now understates the prices because most of the sales are the cheaper homes."

Published: March 9, 2009

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.