SF: Year End Stats, Sources, Doom, and Glee
As December closed, I took a stab at analyzing some of Altos Research’s always excellent information about sales in the city. And although the result of my stabbing confirmed that Altos is indeed excellent, it also revealed a need for more sources. After all, the Altos data was for single-family home sales only, and in SF, condo and TIC sales, to quote Meredith Martin of SFHomeBlog, account “for such a large percentage of the overall housing in our fair city.”
Of course, if you read SFHomeBlog at all, you will note that Martin is generally pretty sunny on the state of the market. And while you can’t argue that stats don’t show SF is doing better than neighboring cities and counties in this time of slump-age, if you look at the data (and you’re not a realtor trying to get people to buy and sell right now, which Martin is), you’ll see things certainly have changed. Of course, some houses are still getting multiple offers, going way over asking. But it used to be the rule that ALL houses would enjoy such attention. That madness is over- at least in the way I read Socketsite’s year end data:
These data include SFH, condos and TIC sales for 2007. In a nutshell, the year ended as follows:
a) The year (2007) ended with an inventory of Active listings (so as yet unsold) that was 23.9% higher than 2006.
b) The inventory for SFH left active was 59.9% higher for single-family homes versus 1.4% higher for condos and TICs.
c) The percentage of active listings whose prices had been reduced was up 26% to 31% over 2006, “with the absolute number of reduced single-family home listings up 104% (from 73 to 149 listings).”
Socketsite is astute to point out that the primary reason for the dowturn is sales in District 10 (Crocker-Amazon, Bayview, Excelsior, Outer Mission, Visitation Valley). I can certainly recall being taken out there by my former SF realtor in 2007, and ensured that it was the “up and coming district, the last affordable place in SF,” that I had to “get in now!” Kinda glad I didn’t.
Meanwhile, Submedian has returned for 2008 with a decidedly glad posting about reduced prices in the city. Here’s a sample:
Missing money in the Mission.
1800 Bryant #311
Last Sale: $739,000 (11/22/2005)
Asking: $625,000
What’s the diff? $114k in 50 months.
Western Subtraction?
2529 Post
Last Sale: $756,000 (07/30/2007)
Asking: $669,900
What’s the diff? $86k in six months.
So whether you read these developments with doom in your eyes, glee in your heart, or confusion, know that the two things SF never is- boring nor easy- ring true as well for the real estate market.
Here’s to an interesting 2008…
