• Home prices. As with employment, San Diego County’s long-beleaguered home market has been picking up since hitting bottom in March, with increases in sales and median price. But skeptics say sales have been picking up largely because of soon-to-expire federal tax incentives and the median price has been rising because pricier homes are being foreclosed upon and resold.
Sharon Hanley, principal of the Hanley Group, a building research firm in Oceanside, estimates that s...