Category: Market Conditions

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Mapping the Spread of the Million Dollar Home in the Bay Area

Thanks to my well-read friend at The Economist for sending me this fascinating infographic.

You can find the full article here at The Atlantic. Their choice of Westwood Park as their poster-neighborhood is an interesting one. On the one hand, it’s a tiny area tucked in to the west of City College between Monterey and Ocean Avenue and it’s not exactly a household name, even to longtime SF denizens. On the other hand, the statistics are impressive: four years ago, according to the article, just 2.9% of its homes cost $1 million or more. Today, 96% of them do. ...  Additional Details

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El Niño Doesn’t Appear to Have Dampened the SF Housing Market

It happens every year. People decide that holiday parties, visiting with family, and staying dry are more important than visiting open houses on the week-end. Activity drops and often so do prices. But with the first glimmers of sunshine and longer days, buyers and sellers get back into the market and the home buying/selling season takes off.

And that seems to be exactly what’s happening this year, despite the lingering effects of El Niño and a bumpy stock market ride. Take a look at the chart below: ...  Additional Details

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New Case-Shiller: Bay Area Home Prices Tick Up a Little

After the feverish spring 2014 market, home prices in the high-price tier – which applies best to San Francisco and Marin counties – flattened and then ticked down a little, while more affordable home segments continued to tick up: It’s not unusual for the market to cool off and plateau during the summer months. The October 2014 Case-Shiller Index just released (on December 30), begins to reflect the autumn selling season, which starts after Labor Day: The market typically begins to heat up again in autumn. (Note that transactions negotiated in September generally start closing in October.) ...  Additional Details

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New Case-Shiller Index Report

The Case-Shiller Index for September was released today. Note that it will mostly reflect sales negotiated in August or before, during the slower summer sales season. (The next Index, published in late December, will begin to reflect transactions negotiated in September and the start of the autumn sales season.) These 2 charts pertain to the upper third of sales for 5 Bay Area counties – upper third by price range. The majority of home sales in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo are in this upper price tier. ...  Additional Details

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August Case-Shiller Index Report

The August Case-Shiller Index report released today showed a small home price decline for the 5 counties of the SF Metro Area. Autumn’s numbers will give us a clearer indication as to whether this is the beginning of a flattening or declining price trend or simply the not untypical indication of a summer adjustment from the spring frenzy. PDFs are attached.

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3rd Quarter 2014 Market Report

San Francisco House & Condo Values

Which Neighborhoods Dominate Home Sales?

Who Is Buying the City’s Luxury Condos and Why?

September saw the largest surge of new listings coming on market in the past 2 years, which led to a big jump in deal-making, but data on transactions negotiated in September won’t be available until most close escrow in October and early November. In the meantime, we’ll look at the last 2 quarters.

Median Sales Prices
& Average Dollar per Square Foot

The following 2 charts look at current and longer-term trends in home values. As is common, median house sales prices dropped a bit in the 3rd quarter – this is due mostly to seasonality issues – though condos have held steady for 3 quarters now at $950,000. Dollar per square foot values have continued to increase to new peaks: This metric is particularly being impacted by new-development condo sales, which are breaking dollar per square foot records virtually everyplace they’re being built.
If you wish to drill down on values in very specific city neighborhoods, we recently updated our interactive map, which can be found here: SF Home Price Map ...  Additional Details