July 2012 Market Update If you wish, you may jump straight to the market charts. The SF real estate market is stuck. Stuck in high gear: huge buyer demand + the lowest interest rates in history + extremely low inventory … Continue reading →
That Rare Thing: A San Francisco Demolition
Listed at $885,000 in November 2008, this little Noe Valley fixer at 4209 24th Street sold for $896,000 in 31 days.
Two and half years later, the owners finally got their demolition permit. It only took a few hours for the little box of ticky-tacky to come a-tumblin’ down. Here’s what it looked like.
Spring Arrives in Noe Valley and Home Sales Warm Up
January is the cruelest month for the housing market. Every winter, sales flatline for a month or two, before reviving with the spring.
This year, there were just seven sales in Noe Valley (Subdistrict 5.C) in January and February. That’s the worst showing in my data set, which goes back to 2003. Things picked up smartly, however, in March. Take a look (double click the chart).
Home-Spotting: Second Time Around, 285 Douglass sells for $250,000 over asking
Explain this one to me please. Elegant if dowdy Victorian lists for $2.349 million in September 2010 and sits there for three months with no takers. Relists in April at $2.3 million and in contract seven days later at $250,000 over asking price. Calls to the no-doubt-jubilant listing agent for some clarification were not returned, but the only thing I can think of to explain it is a brief and bloody bidding war.
[Ed. Update: 4/14/11: Thanks to John Farnham, the listing agent, for getting back to me. There was indeed a bidding war. Won by the guy with the all-cash offer and a promise to close in 7 days. And the extra $250,000 in cash.] ...
Noe Valley Sales Distribution Returns to Normal in 2010
The median price of a single family home in Noe Valley in 2010 was $1,221,500. The median price of a condo or TIC was substantially less, at $768,000. Total sales for the year were 233 units, divided evenly between homes and condos/TICs.
Noe Valley Back Smartly in 2010
After nearly two years of sharp declines, Noe Valley single family home prices recovered smartly in 2010. Not enough, however, for anyone to claim that Noe Valley is somehow immune from market forces affecting the rest of San Francisco. As of December 2010, Noe Valley home prices were still down 20% from their all-time highs, almost exactly the same as prices for homes city-wide.
Here’s the chart (double click):
The 2010 Residential Wrap-Up: What’s goin’ on? Not much.
Avid readers of this blog will recall that I hastily pulled my last attempt to post on this subject because of some errors in the data. Horrors. The errors caused 2010 to look like a much stronger year in terms of price increases for single family homes.
Whether that would have been good news or bad depends, of course, on whether you’re trying to buy or sell. As it is, 2010 ended up being a wash from either perspective. Here’s the chart (click to enlarge:
Of Mixes and Medians: Interpreting Noe’s Valley
My last post was about the fact that Noe Valley median home prices are still down 30% from their all time highs despite a smart recovery in median home prices city-wide. This, despite my sense that there seem to have been a burst of Noe Valley homes hitting the market in the $2 million range and above recently.