Election map

Perhaps you'll find this interesting:





Election results are from San Diego Registrar of Voters; precinct boundaries are from SanGIS, parsed with Shapefile library. I used the map of Congressional Districts as the background - that was the highest-resolution map of San Diego I could find. (I tried to stitch together a map from Google Maps screenshots, but that didn't work so well - I couldn't get the election overlay to match geographic features perfectly.)

All precincts with 20 or more recorded votes are shown.

It's striking how little opposition there is for Prop 8 outside North County coast and central neighborhoods (Hillcrest, South Park & such). Most neighborhoods south of 94 vote for Obama and Yes on 8. Same with Indian reservations (Pala, Barona, Santa Ysabel) and democratic pockets in Escondido and El Cajon.

Mandatory election post

Every blogger seems to have something to say about our recent election. Here's my try.

This is how different parts of San Diego County voted on November 4th.

Neighborhood	Votes for McCain	Votes for Obama	% for Obama	% Yes on Prop 8
Alpine	4202	1939	31.6%	69.4%
Ballena	310	133	30.0%	69.4%
Bonita	2748	2427	46.9%	62.6%
Bonsall	690	358	34.2%	65.9%
Borrego Springs	477	518	52.1%	56.3%
Bostonia	3786	2755	42.1%	66.3%
Boulevard	341	164	32.5%	72.8%
Buena	1845	1390	43.0%	62.0%
Campo	414	159	27.7%	77.4%
Carlsbad	21637	21843	50.2%	51.2%
Centre City	1893	4165	68.8%	36.5%
Chollas Park	716	4571	86.5%	65.0%
Chula Vista	24675	36318	59.5%	62.5%
City Heights	1059	3284	75.6%	49.9%
Clairemont E	6240	7731	55.3%	51.8%
Clairemont N	4458	5993	57.3%	47.7%
Clairemont S	3605	5363	59.8%	43.3%
Coronado	4224	3095	42.3%	54.8%
Crest	840	437	34.2%	69.2%
Dehesa	195	132	40.4%	63.5%
Del Dios	2372	2151	47.6%	58.1%
Del Mar	812	1439	63.9%	32.6%
Del Mar Heights	5604	8362	59.9%	40.3%
Descanso	1134	474	29.5%	70.1%
El Cajon	13004	11324	46.5%	63.9%
Elfin Forest	124	104	45.6%	55.3%
Encanto E	2857	5790	67.0%	68.7%
Encanto W	1660	6356	79.3%	66.5%
Encinitas	9981	16538	62.4%	38.3%
Escondido	18635	15711	45.7%	64.1%
Fairbanks Ranch	503	250	33.2%	58.7%
Fallbrook	8732	4816	35.5%	68.1%
Felicita Park	892	499	35.9%	62.0%
Foothill	287	219	43.3%	60.6%
Golden Hill	413	2098	83.6%	30.7%
Harbison Canyon	301	147	32.8%	63.2%
Harbor	745	643	46.3%	50.1%
Helix	3030	2752	47.6%	55.8%
Hidden Meadows	2131	1076	33.6%	69.1%
Hillcrest	1481	7791	84.0%	16.4%
Imperial Beach	2553	3511	57.9%	55.9%
Jacumba	58	73	55.7%	65.6%
Jamacha	661	373	36.1%	67.0%
Jamul	1963	1139	36.7%	66.7%
Julian	789	504	39.0%	60.1%
La Jolla	6467	8886	57.9%	40.0%
La Mesa	9133	11730	56.2%	50.7%
La Playa	1929	2004	51.0%	47.9%
Lake Morena	331	153	31.6%	71.4%
Lake San Marcos	1515	927	38.0%	65.9%
Lakeside	7590	3868	33.8%	69.0%
Lakeview Flinn	3491	1634	31.9%	70.4%
Lemon Grove	2919	4114	58.5%	61.4%
Lincoln Acres	172	319	65.0%	65.7%
Linda Vista	2787	4488	61.7%	48.9%
Loma Portal	2668	3408	56.1%	44.9%
Lomas Santa Fe	231	314	57.6%	36.8%
Middletown	1863	5030	73.0%	28.1%
Midway Old Town	1498	2734	64.6%	40.0%
Mira Mesa	9464	11220	54.2%	57.2%
Mission Bay	659	1087	62.3%	33.8%
Mission Hills	1286	3220	71.5%	27.7%
Mission Valley	1459	2966	67.0%	35.1%
Montezuma	2004	4526	69.3%	33.8%
Montgomery	296	449	60.3%	44.6%
National City	3273	6065	64.9%	65.9%
Navajo	6324	7238	53.4%	50.5%
Nestor	3488	6460	64.9%	65.0%
Normal Heights	3227	10063	75.7%	34.4%
North Park	2322	11834	83.6%	23.5%
Oak Grove	268	188	41.2%	68.1%
Ocean Beach	2217	6328	74.1%	26.9%
Oceanside	25385	26334	50.9%	59.5%
Otay	2170	3655	62.7%	66.4%
Pacific Beach	5390	11021	67.2%	31.6%
Pala	57	115	66.9%	59.7%
Paradise Hills	3374	4808	58.8%	68.4%
Pauma Valley	174	205	54.1%	62.9%
Pomerado	8297	8830	51.6%	52.1%
Potrero	161	140	46.5%	75.1%
Poway	11416	7920	41.0%	60.0%
Rainbow	287	200	41.1%	65.7%
Ramona	8215	3886	32.1%	68.0%
Ranchita	156	109	41.1%	64.4%
Rancho Bernardo	9423	8625	47.8%	57.4%
Rancho El Cajon	1453	637	30.5%	72.3%
Rancho Santa Fe	1652	837	33.6%	57.7%
Rho Monserate	432	247	36.4%	72.1%
Rho Penasquitos	14972	16475	52.4%	52.7%
Rincon D Diablo	2045	1188	36.7%	64.4%
Rock Springs	431	267	38.3%	65.3%
Rolando Redwood	3380	7575	69.1%	51.4%
San Carlos	5361	5863	52.2%	51.7%
San Marcos	11446	11181	49.4%	59.8%
San Ysidro	1709	4217	71.2%	65.4%
Santee	12007	7869	39.6%	62.7%
Se San Diego E	339	2116	86.2%	65.4%
Se San Diego W	289	1838	86.4%	61.0%
Serra Mesa	3130	3845	55.1%	52.0%
Solana Beach	2571	3445	57.3%	41.1%
South Park	1400	5628	80.1%	25.2%
Spring Valley	7093	8756	55.2%	64.1%
Sweetwater	405	415	50.6%	66.6%
Tierrasanta	4455	5437	55.0%	48.2%
University N	3812	11904	75.7%	29.7%
University S	2791	4063	59.3%	43.8%
Valle De Oro	6877	4506	39.6%	63.6%
Valley Center	3869	1806	31.8%	70.2%
Vista	11208	10934	49.4%	60.8%
Vista Acres	724	556	43.4%	61.6%
Whispering Palms	804	484	37.6%	56.1%
Yaqui Wells	61	64	51.2%	57.3%

All numbers come from here.


Rural areas are pro-McCain, central San Diego neighborhoods (e.g. Golden Hill, South Park) are heavily pro-Obama. Hillcrest and North Park favor Obama 5 to 1. In Fairbanks Ranch and Rancho Santa Fe, 67% of votes went for McCain, but neighboring Del Mar Heights and Solana Beach vote 57-59% for Obama. (Carmel Valley is probably part of Del Mar Heights in their definition)

Hillcrest is the most liberal, deep East County (Campo, Descanso, Boulevard) is the most conservative. Chollas Park, Encanto, San Ysidro, National City vote for Obama and Yes on 8 at the same time.

Next, I'll try to build a map. I'll either have to find 2008 precinct definitions or adapt 2006 definitions somehow.

San Diego HPI - October '08

City average: 37.9% off the peak
Top tier: 15.5% off the peak
Middle tier: 37.4% off the peak
Bottom tier: 45.9% off the peak



These numbers represent transactions that went into escrow in late August or early September. Stock market began tanking in the last week of September. I expect to see some impact of the stock market crash in November and December data.

San Diego HPI - September '08

City average: 37.5% off the peak
Top tier: 15.3% off the peak
Middle tier: 37.6% off the peak
Bottom tier: 44.9% off the peak



Note: the chart is rebased to use December '99 = 100%, this way my numbers can be directly compared with Case-Shiller.

Month	S&P Case-Shiller	SDHPI
January '08	197.45	198.06
February '08	190.34	190.64
March '08	185.42	184.87
April '08	180.56	179.99
May '08	178.03	176.52
June '08	175.37	174.37
July '08	172.20	171.42
August '08		168.25
September '08		164.32
October '08		159.23

Good schools vs bad schools

This is only marginally related to the main topic of my blog.

When I do tiered price analysis, I define "top tier" as a set of desirable geographical areas with low crime and good schools. But what makes good schools good?

This is a plot of API scores of 450 elementary schools in San Diego County against average education level of all parents of students in these schools. Average parent education level is defined in such a way that it would be 5 if every student in a school had at least one parent who spent any time in a graduate school; it would be 1 if no one in the school had a single parent who managed to graduate from high school.



It seems that parent education is a strong predictor of school ratings. On the other hand, school district itself has almost no say.

All numbers come from here

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/apidatafiles.asp

San Diego HPI - August '08

City average: 35.1% off the peak
Top tier: 14.3% off the peak
Middle tier: 35.3% off the peak
Bottom tier: 44.1% off the peak

Almost all regions are showing declines again. City average is down 2% month-to-month, top tier is at the lowest level since 2004, and 54-94 geo finally went below 50% off the peak.




Price changes since 2000:

Forecast

This is an attempt to predict the dynamics of the real estate market in San Diego over the next 3-4 years.



"Fundamentals" curve assumes more or less unchanged interest rates and steady wage inflation that averages 3%/year going forward. For the top tier I use a soft-landing scenario (exponential decay to fundamentals). To extrapolate two other tiers, I use quadratic approximations of season-adjusted HPI points from the last 9 months.

Summary of predictions:

* Aggregate Case-Shiller bottom in February '09 in 150-155 range (late '02 pricing)
* Top tier: 5% decline followed by many years of scraping along the bottom
* Middle tier: 6-8% decline followed by a mild bounce-back

Caveats:

* Bottom tier may get some support from FHA short-refinancing program, in which case the decline will not be so severe.
* I'm assuming that GSE conforming-jumbo loans and higher FHA loan limits stay with us until the return of a healthy jumbo market. Technically, they are supposed to be discontinued on Dec 31, 2008, but it's likely that loan limits will be extended.
* Interest rates may not stay the same. Here are two alternative scenarios, with rates heading to 5.5% and 7.5% long term, respectively:





I'm not a prophet and I may be seriously off, only time will tell.

UPDATE: recalculated the "fundamentals" curve using actual CPI and mortgage rate data.