The average sale price for a piece of vacant land in San Diego County hit $236,000 in July, figures from the San Diego Association of Realtors show.
The average price of the 111 parcels sold was 21 percent higher than in July 1999 when 106 pieces were sold for an average of $195,000, the organization said. It’s one of the major reasons houses are so expensive in the county, according to housing industry leaders.
“With the Multiple Species Conservation Act and the mitigation required because of it, there is more and more land that has been put into a land bank to protect endangered species,” said Robert K. Fligg, a real estate broker in Alpine. “What’s left that can still be built on is bound to go up in value because of supply and demand.”
Fligg said what also drives up the cost of the finished house are county slope and density requirements that make the process of subdividing large parcels difficult if not impossible in many cases.
He said resistance to high-density housing neighbors also plays a part in restricting the supply of affordable housing.
“Today interest rates are low, this is the strongest economic times I’ve ever experienced, but I have never seen so many people living on the streets here because they can’t afford an apartment,” Fligg said.
Donna Morafcik, a spokeswoman for the Building Industry Association of San Diego County, agreed that higher density zoning would reduce the cost of land by making more, smaller lots available through subdividing.
However, there still are about $20,000 in up-front fees to government agencies for schools, streets, and other infrastructure that need to be paid before development of a lot starts, she said. In an area such as La Costa Valley, the impact fees are as high as $55,000 per house, she said.
The time delays in getting a piece of land subdivided also add to the finished price of a lot because the developer has to pay interest on a mortgage while going through the three- to five-year subdivision planning process, she said.
“We need to ease some of the environmental constraints against development,” Morafcik said. “Excessive environmental review, often duplicative at different levels of government, adds thousands of dollars onto the price of a finished house.”
Both said an anti-growth attitude by those who already own a house also impedes the subdividing of land into affordable pieces.
The high price of real estate in the county is already drawing complaints from some business and industry leaders who are concerned that their employees have to pay too much for housing, Morafcik said.
