California's median home price rises

(Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune)By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, Calif.

Apr. 22--California's median home price posted its biggest annual gain in more than five years last month, rising 20.8 percent to $301,790.

The March figure was up from $249,790 a year earlier, the California Association of Realtors reported Thursday.

Realtors throughout the nation have been grappling with tight inventories, a factor that has driven prices up and kept sales low. Home sales in California fell 2.5 percent in March compared with February but were up 2.5 percent from March 2009.

"With the number of homes for sale in the state expected to remain lean, gains in the statewide median price may well outpace the nation going forward," CAR President Steve Goddard said in a statement.

Los Angeles County's median home price was $329,190 in March, up 0.7 percent from February and up 11.6 percent from a year ago.

Housing sales in the county were more dramatic, rising 29.4 percent in March from the previous month, although year-over-year sales were up only 5.5 percent.

Robert Kleinhenz, CAR's deputy chief economist, put the monthly sales jump in perspective.

"This is the time of year when we typically see a jump in sales -- from February to March," he said. "And if you take a look at the data for other regions, we had big month-to-month gains across the state."

The numbers bear that out. The San Luis Obispo region experienced the state's biggest monthly sales gain in February (61.3 percent). But other areas also

had big gains, including Santa Barbara South Coast (51.1 percent), Santa Barbara County (49.6 percent), San Francisco Bay (48.1 percent) and Santa Cruz County (42.2 percent).

Median home prices also increased significantly in some San Gabriel Valley cities.

Arcadia experienced the second largest increase in the state, with its median home price jumping 40.2 percent in March to $726,136 compared with $518,000 a year earlier.

Kleinhenz had a theory about that.

"I don't have the raw data, but part of it may have to do with the mix of sales," he said. "Arcadia is not exclusively made up of detached homes, so there may have been a little bit bigger mix of condos that kept prices down before."

Kleinhenz said Arcadia's sales were likely nudged even higher by buyers taking advantage of state and federal tax credits that weren't around the previous year.

Other cities that experienced significant annual price gains include San Gabriel (13.7 percent), Montebello (10.5 percent), Duarte (9.3 percent), San Dimas (9 percent), El Monte (8.6 percent) and Alhambra (8 percent).

Regionally, the lowest-priced area of the state was the High Desert. In March, the High Desert's median home price was $122,970, up 7.2 percent from a year earlier, CAR reported.

Tom Adams, owner of Century 21 Adams & Barnes, is hopeful that the housing market is finally getting back on track.

"We're cautiously optimistic," he said. "If things continue to improve -- barring any unforeseen calamity -- I think we're on the path the recovery."

Adams noted, however, that some areas, such as the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley, are still in for a long and slow recovery.

"Lenders are still not releasing the supposed flood of foreclosures we've been hearing about," he said. "That provides a nudge for prices to go up, and every little nudge allows more people to break even rather than go through the foreclosure process."

Kleinhenz said the housing market is faring better than some might think.

"I'm not concerned about getting back to the sales that occurred during the peak years in 2004 and 2005," he said. "We're right around where we were in the pre-peak years. When I look at Los Angeles County 5.5 percent increase in year-over-year sales it's not that big of a gain. But we're comparing it with pretty strong figures from the previous year."

NO MORE STATE TAX ON FORGIVEN DEBT

http://takeaction.realtoractioncenter.com/carealtors/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=45129653

Median home prices keep rising

S.D. County's 15.8% climb best among those in report

BY ROGER SHOWLEY, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 13, 2010 AT 11:10 A.M., UPDATED APRIL 13, 2010 AT 8:58 P.M.

Southern California home prices last month rose 14 percent from a year ago to a median $285,000, MDA DataQuick reported Tuesday, further evidence that the region’s real estate market is stabilizing.

Sales were up for the 21st consecutive month, as transactions involving higher-priced, move-up homes kicked in to broaden the market beyond low-cost starter homes.

Economists read the latest figures as indicators that the housing plunge is mostly over, but said a general upturn is unlikely soon because of rising interest rates and sluggish job growth. They also cautioned against assuming a 14 percent rise in the median translates into a 14 percent increase in individual property values. Instead, the figure reflects a change in the types of properties being sold.

San Diego County’s median price, as reported Monday, rose the most of the six counties evaluated — up 15.8 percent, compared with a year ago, to $330,000. Ventura County followed, up 15 percent to $375,000.

In contrast, San Bernardino County prices were up 1.3 percent to $152,000, followed by Riverside County, up

5.9 percent to $198,000. Both counties have felt the brunt of the housing slump, as overbuilding outpaced demand and thousands of homeowners defaulted on mortgages.

Sales across the region totaled 20,476, up 5 percent from March 2009. But that was below the 23-year average of 24,936. San Diego sales totaled 3,227, up 6.9 percent, while Los Angeles County rose the most, up 13 percent to 6,747. Riverside sales dropped 5.7 percent and Ventura’s were down 4.8 percent — signs that demand is not rising consistently throughout the region.

“It’s a reflection of just how grim things got that we’ve now had almost two years of sales gains and we’re still 18 percent below the sales average,” said DataQuick President John Walsh.

He said more sales activity won’t take place until lending patterns normalize. He singled out higher-end jumbo loans, traditionally involving mortgages for more than $417,000. They accounted for 15.7 percent of March loans, up from 14.8 percent in February but far behind the 40 percent level before the fall 2007 credit crisis.

Among other findings in March, DataQuick said foreclosure resales dropped to 38.4 percent of the overall resale market, down from 42.3 percent in February; adjustable-rate mortgages accounted for 4.8 percent of loans, up from 4 percent in February and 2.1 percent a year ago (their market share since 2000 is 44.6 percent); and all-cash buyers accounted for 27.1 percent of March sales, down from February’s 30 percent record.

Economist Esmael Adibi at Chapman University’s A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research welcomed the price and sales increases as signs of a stabilizing market.

“We’re not seeing further deterioration in prices,” he said. “We’re seeing some improvement, and part of that is the mix.”

Instead of sales being dominated by low-cost distressed properties, the mix of properties being sold now includes high-priced, move-up homes.

“I don’t want people to have a false hope that there’s really an improvement in value,” he said.

As 2010 progresses, the differences with 2009 will lessen and the year-over-year change will likely dwindle.

“Even if values are not changing and my home has not increased, the fact that it is stabilizing, that’s good news,” he said. “We’re not seeing further deterioration in prices.”

Economist Christopher Thornberg at Beacon Economics said he thought values have increased, mainly at the starter-home level. But in the next few months, he thinks housing prices will weaken because of the end of the federal and state tax rebates for homebuyers and rising interest rates.

“I think we’re going to see this little party is going to slowly end,” he said. “This rally is just going to fade away.”

Thornberg said the federal government’s economic stimulus policies have done what was intended — increase housing demand and stabilize the market.

“The problem is the policies are coming to an end, and when they do, I fully expect the market is going to slump again,” he said.

Even if the economy improves, housing will not necessarily improve with it, he added: “It’s pretty clear a strong economy doesn’t mean a wonderful housing market.”

However, he said homes are at least are more affordable than they were five years ago. But he said that, too, is likely to fade as interest rates continue to rise.

Wells Fargo Securities senior economist Mark Vitner predicted a 6 percent to 8 percent backslide in Southern California home prices.

“The true underlying demand for homes will not improve until employment picks up in a clear and convincing way,” he said in an e-mail. “That said, most of the damage has already been done.”

Paul Habibi at the UCLA Anderson School of Management took a longer perspective, predicting five more years of sluggish home prices and then a major pickup in housing construction.

“The economic fundamentals of Southern California are promising,” he said. “We’re definitely going to have another development cycle.”

More homeowners keep up with their mortgage

By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

The share of homeowners behind on their mortgages fell in the first quarter, the first drop in four years and a possible sign that the foreclosure crisis has peaked.

The portion of mortgages that were delinquent 30 days or more fell to 6.57% in the first quarter from 6.60% in the last three months of 2009, according to Equifax and Moody's Economy.com.

That's a drop of about 16,630 delinquent loans and, though modest, it is the first decline in the delinquency rate since early 2006.

"It will take years to work through all the troubled mortgage loans in the foreclosure pipeline, but this is the first indication that the number of loans entering the pipeline is declining," says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "It portends a peaking of the foreclosure crisis."

Delinquencies in almost all categories — 30-, 90- and 120-day delinquencies on single-family properties — declined.

Reasons for the improvement in the foreclosure rate:

•Tougher lending standards since the housing bubble burst have kept riskier borrowers from getting mortgages.

•Mortgage modifications have helped tens of thousands of troubled homeowners stave off delinquencies.

•A more stable job market is preventing new mortgage delinquencies. The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7% in March, and non-farm jobs increased by 162,000.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we're at the peak," says Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.

But the foreclosure problem won't disappear quickly.

In the past two years, more than 5 million homes have received foreclosure notices, and more than 3 million are expected to get them this year, according to RealtyTrac.

One issue is strategic defaults by borrowers who walk away from their mortgages — even though they can afford to pay — because they owe more than their homes are worth.

Millions of homes have negative equity and perhaps 20% to 25% of recent defaults have been strategic, according to a new Moody's Economy.com analysis.

More strategic defaults could increase the pace of home foreclosures and hamper new borrowers' attempts to get mortgages, it says.

"There is still a foreclosure problem that is going to cause people to lose their homes, but in terms of new delinquencies starting, those are probably at their peak," Zandi says. "This summer will be the peak of foreclosures started."

County housing market strengthening

BY ROGER SHOWLEY, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 12, 2010 AT 12:55 P.M., UPDATED APRIL 12, 2010 AT 10:42 P.M

SAN DIEGO — San Diego County’s housing market shook off its winter doldrums and turned in a March median that suggests prices have firmed up and may be heading upward, MDA DataQuick figures showed Monday.

The local firm that tracks the real estate market reported the March median at $330,000, equal to December’s level. It was $45,000, or 15.8 percent, higher than in March 2009 — the biggest percentage increase in five years — and up $8,000, or 2.5 percent, from February.

DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said the rise is mainly because of more higher-cost homes selling instead of a general rise in appreciation. Homes selling for more than $400,000 comprised 37.4 percent of the March market, up from 34.1 percent in February and 26.9 percent in March 2008. At the same time, homes selling for less than $300,000 accounted for 42.3 percent of the market, down from 43.6 percent in February and 52.6 percent a year ago.

“It’s price softness in the high-end that is driving sales and bringing up the high-end total contribution to countywide sales,” LePage said.

He and other analysts said the future of the housing market, still emerging from a five-year slide, will turn on interest rates and low-cost distress sales. Foreclosure sales dropped in March after rising the previous three months, normally a sign of less distress.

But LePage said lenders likely switched their attention to short sales — homes sold for less than the mortgage balance — instead of facing higher losses by sending properties through the foreclosure process. The market share of foreclosure resales was 32.8 percent, down from 38.7 percent in February.

Still, University of San Diego economist Alan Gin said he is optimistic about the housing market because the economy looks more promising.

“The economy is starting to rebound,” Gin said, “so the question is, can the economy rebound fast enough to save people from these foreclosures? Can enough new jobs be generated so people who are stressed out can find work and meet their mortgages? I think that’s going to be the conflict through much of 2010. Some people might be saved; others will not.”

Rick Hoffman, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Mortgage in San Diego, said his agents have seen more activity in the last few weeks from buyers and sellers, and not just because spring is always more active than winter.

“We can’t keep inventory in our Carmel Valley office,” Hoffman said.

But he characterized consumer confidence as weak.

“When you start looking statistically at prices that reached a floor and have come up a bit, consumer confidence always lags the actual statistics,” he said. “I don’t think the message has gotten to consumers that, hopefully, we’re off the bottom and maybe we’ve changed to a slight increase.”

DataQuick said sales totaled 3,227 in March, up 30.9 percent in the usual upturn from February but 18 percent below the March average going back to 1988. Real estate agents say sales are down from normal levels because inventories are relatively low, as many would-be sellers wait for prices to rise.

At the neighborhood level, DataQuick reported declining median prices for resale houses in high-priced neighborhoods, while prices in the lowest-priced ZIP codes rose.

Among neighborhoods with at least 20 resales in the first quarter, the median price in Rancho Santa Fe was down 72.2 percent from $6.5 million in the first quarter of 2009 to $1.8 million this past quarter. La Jolla, Del Mar, Solana Beach and Coronado quarterly medians also were down year-over-year.

Logan Heights rose 4.4 percent to $135,750, as did other low-cost places such as Golden Hill, National City and City Heights.

Rich Toscano, a real estate market watcher at Pacific Capital Associates, said another measurement of price changes, cost per square foot, rose about 5 percent from February to March, double the median increase of 2.5 percent. He said that indicates a rise in value.

“I have a feeling that we are in a recovery of sorts,” Toscano said. But, he cautioned, “I definitely have concerns about the sustainability of the recovery.”

Most worrisome to Toscano and others is the outlook for interest rates. Last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported an average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages of 5.31 percent, up from 5.04 percent the week before. Some economists believe that rate could reach 6 percent by the year’s end.

Would-be homebuyers have to decide whether it’s worth hoping for lower prices, when higher rates could eliminate any savings on the monthly payment.

Dave McDonald, a mortgage broker at American Dream Real Estate Group, said for every 1 percentage point increase in mortgage rates, the purchase price would have to drop roughly 10 percent to yield the same monthly payment. For example, a loan of $330,000 at 43⁄8 percent, available two weeks ago, would have to drop to $295,000 to produce the same monthly payment of about $1,750 at 53⁄8 percent.

“If you could find something you like and could qualify, I’d say buy it,” McDonald said.

Calif. Lawmakers Pass Housing-Crisis Tax Relief

CATHY BUSSEWITZ, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Legislature passed a bill Thursday that could help many homeowners who were hurt by the housing crisis save thousands of dollars in taxes.

The bill would provide relief for homeowners who received mortgage modifications, lost their homes to foreclosure or sold their houses for less than they owed on their mortgages. It would prevent the canceled debt from being treated as taxable income.

Currently, some types of debts that are forgiven can be considered as income and taxed by the government, meaning that homeowners spared from an overwhelming mortgage can face huge tax bills.

Congress addressed the problem with the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. The recent legislative action conforms California law to that federal tax change, which runs through 2012.

"The mortgage debt tax relief provision in this bill will provide financial shelter for tens of thousands of Californians," said Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Whittier. "It's about time we gave these folks a helping hand. They've lost their homes and they've sat by fretting over a whopping state tax bill they can't afford."

The Assembly and Senate passed the bill after removing a provision about tax fraud penalties that drew objections from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The bill also specified that renewable energy companies that received grants through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would not have to report those grants as taxable income.

Schwarzenegger told reporters Thursday he intended to sign the bill.

"We want to give people the relief that they need, and we want to do everything we can for businesses, also for homeowners," Schwarzenegger said.

Taxpayers who already filed their 2009 returns can file an amended return, said Brenda Voet of the Franchise Tax Board. On the amended form, they would reduce their stated taxable income by the amount of debt that was forgiven.

Voet said the change would go into effect immediately after the governor signed the bill into law. Homeowners whose debt was forgiven and who have not yet filed their tax forms can omit the amount of forgiven debt when calculating their taxable income.

Some Republicans continued to oppose the legislation because it introduced a variety of tax increases. Assemblyman Ted Gaines said those tax increases could amount to $82 million.

One change would expand the number of children whose unearned income is taxed at their parents' tax rate, rather than the lower tax rate those children previously enjoyed.

Another change would increase penalties to corporations that fail to file a return.

"It's awfully troubling when we're going to provide a benefit to one class of taxpayer and have another class pay for it," said Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Sacramento.

Democrats said the tax increases were minor and explained that those changes also conformed California law to federal law.

Execs Turn Solidly Positive

ECONOMY: Q2 outlook highest in two-plus years

By Murray Coleman
Sunday, April 4, 2010

Orange County executives have turned solidly optimistic in their outlook for the second quarter, shaking off some two years of negative expectations about the economy, according to economists at California State University, Fullerton.
A quarterly index of business expectations is at 65.2 for the second quarter, marking the fifth straight gain since the low of the recession in early 2009.
An index reading of 50 or more signals a positive outlook for the quarter.
The reading is up from 53.3 for the first quarter, which was the first in positive territory since the third quarter of 2007.
“This represents a definite turning point in the local economy,” said Anil Puri, dean of the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at Cal State Fullerton. “This shows expectations are for continuing better news on the overall business environment and unemployment in the second quarter.”
The index hit a low of 15.2 for the first quarter of 2009, just after the financial meltdown that started in late 2008.
Its high of 94.9 came in the third quarter of 2004.
The index, based on a survey of executives, professionals, managers and business owners, is designed to be a leading indicator of quarterly economic activity.
Respondents were upbeat in just about all areas, even employment—a laggard in the county’s fledgling economic recovery.
In February, the county’s unemployment rate was 9.7% as employers shed 53,000 workers, a 3.8% decline from a year earlier, according to the state Employment Development Department.
Some Hiring
Respondents said they expect some improvement in jobs this quarter. About a fifth, 22.3%, said they plan to increase hiring.
That was up from 20.2% in the first quarter.
The vast majority of respondents, 61.2%, said they plan to keep their workforces steady. That was down from 65.8% for the first quarter.
The numbers tell only part of the story, according to Puri.
“We really saw very little change in sentiment readings right now for employment growth,” he said. “But additional feedback separate from the surveys and other data that’s starting to come in indicates growing sentiment that employment will pick up in the second quarter.”
Most respondents said they now expect an improved or at least stable economy, both locally and across Southern California.
That number, 81%, rose nine percentage points from a quarter ago to the highest positive sentiment toward overall economic activity in two years, according to the survey.
“We’ve seen a real turnaround in the economy,” said survey respondent Rick Lenning, vice president at electronics maker American Relays Inc. in Santa Fe Springs. “We’re at the leading edge of economic change since we manufacture electronic components that go into process control and testing equipment.”
The company’s customers, many of them in OC, “usually start investing in their businesses first before we see a general improvement in the businesses they supply,” Lenning said.
American Relays is coming off a “dismal” 2009, he said.
“But in December, we saw a real upsurge in our orders,” Lenning said. “It has gotten better each month since then. We’re seeing increased momentum in the marketplace.”
Still, business owners and executives remain cautious in their optimism. About a third, 34.5%, said they expect significant growth in their own industry, unchanged from the first quarter.
Small Businesses
Things remain tough for smaller businesses, said Greg Arbues, a Santa Ana-based consultant to businesses with yearly sales of $5 million to $25 million.
“It’s still a struggle to meet fairly modest expectations, said Arbues, who runs Client Advocate Network LLC. “Credit is still tight and taxes from healthcare and other government mandates are still major issues for many small-business owners.”
Bigger companies are benefiting from a freeing up of credit and government stimulus projects, he said.
“So they might be feeling more positive than small-business owners in Orange County,” Arbues said.
Still, fewer executives seem to be worried about a downturn. At the start of the first quarter, more than a quarter, 26%, predicted some decrease in their businesses.
That fell to around 22% for the second quarter.
Some 43.3% of respondents said they believe their segments will continue to at least hold steady this quarter, up from 38.9% for the first quarter.

County housing prices up 0.4%

Area one of stronger markets 2009 to 2010

BY THOMAS KUPPER, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2010 AT 12:04 A.M.

Strongest markets

One-month change in home prices

1. Los Angeles 0.9%

2. SAN DIEGO 0.4%

3. Miami -0.2%

4. New York -0.3%

5. Washington -0.4%

SOURCE: Standard & Poor’s

After perking up last summer and fall, home prices in San Diego and across the country have hit a winter lull.

The latest reading from the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index yesterday showed San Diego County prices up 0.4 percent in January, the fourth straight gain of half a percentage point or less. That compares with monthly gains as big as 2.5 percent last summer.

And San Diego was one of the stronger markets in the January report, with prices falling in 18 of the 19 other markets the index tracks. Only Los Angeles also showed a gain. A nationwide index of 20 cities fell 0.4 percent.

“The report is mixed,” S&P index chairman David M. Blitzer said. “While we continue to see improvements in the year-over-year data for all 20 cities, the rebound in housing prices seen last fall is fading.”

Any improvement is welcome after local prices plunged 42 percent from their October 2005 peak through last April. Since then, prices have bounced back 9 percent by S&P’s measure, bringing them back roughly to where they were in early 2003.

But most of that gain happened during the summer selling season through August. That paralleled the nationwide trend, as prices jumped last summer before recently showing slight declines.

“We are in a seasonally weak part of the year,” Blitzer said. “But given the data reported today, we can’t say we’re out of the woods yet.”

San Diego prices were up 5.9 percent in January compared with a year earlier, with only San Francisco showing a larger gain, at 9.0 percent. The nationwide index was down 0.7 percent year-to-year, but that was the smallest drop since January 2007.

The housing market continues to fall in some areas of the country, with Las Vegas, Seattle, Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., hitting new lows for the current slump. Prices in the weakest market, Las Vegas, are down 55.8 percent from their high point.

The strongest rebounds have been San Francisco and Minneapolis, up 15.2 percent and 12.9 percent from their low points, respectively.

Norm Miller, a vice president at the CoStar Group in San Diego, said prices could well perk up again this spring. Mortgage rates are relatively low, and a federal tax credit could lure buyers into the market.

But Miller said this wouldn’t signal a sustainable trend, as he said weakness in the general economy along with potentially higher mortgage rates will likely keep prices relatively flat for some time.

“The biggest problem we have is unemployment,” he said. “The other problem we have to keep in mind is that things would have been much, much worse if mortgage rates weren’t historically low.”

Indeed, rates that have been below 5 percent on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in recent weeks are already rising, and Miller said that could continue as the Federal Reserve prepares to end a program of buying up mortgage bonds that has helped prop up the market. Miller said that alone could boost rates by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points.

Likewise, he said, with the latest reading of San Diego’s unemployment rate at 10.6 percent, a lot of people aren’t in a position to buy a home.

“Consumers know it’s not a bad time to buy,” Miller said. “You can’t do that if you don’t have a job.”

The S&P index uses a methodology that aims to estimate the change in actual home values by tracking the prices of individual homes that sell more than once over time. The idea is to avoid a problem with the more common methodology, median prices, which can be skewed by changes in the mix of properties that sell.

But a local measure of median prices from MDA DataQuick, which also showed big gains last summer, has been flattening out in recent months. That measure, which is a month ahead of the S&P report, showed a San Diego County median price of $322,000 in February, down 2 percent from $330,000 in December.

Hiring outlook brightest since ’07

162,000 people find work, but road ahead is steep

BY THOMAS KUPPER, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

LORI WEISBERG, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010 AT 12:05 A.M.

The strongest jobs report in three years gave new hope to millions of Americans who’ve been thrown out of work in the worst employment market in a generation.

The Labor Department reported yesterday that the economy added 162,000 jobs in March, with employment gains at factories, stores and hospitals. About a third of the growth came from temporary census hiring, but economists were encouraged that the private sector added 123,000 jobs for the month, the most since May 2007.

Local experts said they are spotting signs of improvement in San Diego County’s job market, most notably at temporary-employment firms that are often the first to see demand increase.

“We’ve started to see customers we hadn’t heard from for a year or two starting to call us again,” said Phil Blair, who oversees the local operations of the Manpower employment agency.

To be sure, the employment picture remains weak. The national unemployment rate came in at 9.7 percent for the third straight month, and hiring is not expected to be robust enough to bring that down significantly anytime soon.

San Diego County and the rest of California have seen higher unemployment than the country as a whole, largely because of the real estate collapse. The most recent readings, for February, were 10.6 percent for San Diego and 12.5 percent for the state.

Local economist Kelly Cunningham said he thinks hiring could pick up somewhat in the spring, partly tied to seasonal factors such as tourist attractions adding staff for the busier summer season.

Overall, he said, it could be some time before large numbers of businesses have enough confidence in their prospects to ramp up hiring.

“We are seeing job losses tapering off,” said Cunningham, who is with the National University System Institute for Policy Research. “That’s about the best we can say for San Diego.”

The most recent employment report for the county showed gains in areas that included educational and health services, business services and retail trade.

Nationally, yesterday’s report showed that the education industry led job creation, followed by health services and government. Those sectors, plus others such as hospitality, manufacturing and retail, will continue hiring as the recovery picks up, economists say.

In San Diego, some hotels have begun hiring because of higher occupancies during spring break, and others will soon add positions to accommodate increased summer travel. Many of those jobs, though, will be strictly seasonal.

The 420-room Hard Rock Hotel San Diego downtown has filled roughly half of its 40 open positions in a broad array of hotel operations, as well as its spa, restaurants and lounges. The decision to hire that many workers was prompted by signs that business was picking up, both among leisure travelers and those coming for group meetings, general manager Matt Greene said.

Daniel Velasquez, who recently relocated from a hotel job in Sedona, Ariz., started this week as an engineer at the Hard Rock, which selected him from among 170 applicants.

“I came for a better opportunity and had heard that the Hard Rock was a great place to work,” said Velasquez, 26.

While he was fortunate to already be employed when applying for the position, he said he has friends with engineering backgrounds who are unemployed and having a hard time finding work.

“Your technical skill has to be high to get into a property like this,” Velasquez noted.

At a job fair hosted in February by the Sheraton Carlsbad Resort & Spa, more than 500 applicants showed up for 30 positions.

At the Paradise Point Resort & Spa on Mission Bay, a busy spring break this year is an indicator that summer business will be equally strong, necessitating additional hires, hotel manager Pat Rizco said. While last year the resort hired 125 extra employees for the summer, this year there will probably be 200 workers who will start in mid-June and stay through Labor Day, he added.

“We’ve seen a tremendous upswing in demand over the spring break, and in years past, that’s been a telltale sign that there will be a good amount of business in the summer months,” Rizco said. “Last spring it was very weak.”

Also hiring are local theme parks, which are gearing up for booming summer business. SeaWorld plans to expand its staffing from 2,500 to as many as 4,000, while Legoland California in Carlsbad plans to have 400 to 500 more workers this summer, including 200 employees to staff a water park that is under construction.

Cunningham, at National University, said other areas of relative strength in the local job market have included the biotechnology and software industries.

One biotech company that plans to hire in the coming months is Carlsbad’s Regulus Therapeutics, which is working on a new class of drugs based on so-called microRNAs.

Like many of the region’s biotech companies, Regulus is fairly small, at 35 employees. But Chief Executive Kleanthis Xanthopoulos plans to add a dozen more in the near term and hit 100 within a few years.

With a partnership with drug giant GlaxoSmithKline, Regulus is in a better position than some biotechs that have scrambled to raise money in recent years. But Xanthopoulos said the struggles of other companies also help recruiting.

“It’s much easier than it used to be,” he said. “But identifying the talent that complements the company is always a challenge.”

In many industries, hiring remains weak. One indicator: Mike Cully, president of the San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce, asked attendees at an event yesterday morning if they were hiring.

Only one of the roughly 30 businesses said yes, and that one was temporary-employment firm XL Staffing of El Cajon.

“Companies are still tentatively looking at the economy and asking, ‘Are we done yet?’ ” Cully said. “They’re looking at this as more than a typical recession, and they aren’t sure we’re through it yet.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.