According to a December 29 article in the Union Tribune, San Diego County has "recently had two of the slowest home sales years in its history. In records dating to 1988, last year broke the record for slowest year ever with 26,910 sales." In looking through MLS data I can only see 23,267 sales for last year so the additional 3643 were either off-market, non arms-length transactions or for sale by owner. Whatever they were, they still kept sales at an historic low.
This year is on track to be near 2023 in sales numbers. As of December 30 in the MLS we show 24,135 sales that have closed in the county. There may be additional sales, like in 2023, that don't show in the MLS but either way the number is very low. This graph shows historic pending sales by month from May of 2012 through December 5, 2024. As you can see, sales are down for the year.
The lack of sales has been caused by two things: higher interest rates and high prices. Because inventory has stayed relatively low, prices have stayed up. With most home owners hanging on to the low interest rates they got just a few years back there is little incentive to sell unless the seller has a life changing reason - births, deaths, marriage, new job, etc. Will sales pick up in 2025? Seasonally we should see the usual bump we get in the spring and summer but since the Fed has indicated it is slowing down on interest rate reductions we probably won't have a robust year. That could change if we have a huge number of homes hit the local market which could cause prices to come down but, again, sellers are not interested in losing their attractive interest rates. This doesn't mean homes aren't selling because they are. It just means in many areas of the county they are sitting on the market longer and the seller may need to give some concessions to get the property sold.