Case-Shiller: Bay Area Home Prices Rewound to October 2000

It’s time once again for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI).

For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – January data is released in March).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the San Francisco Bay Area* as of January:

January 2009
Month to Month: Down 4.4%
Year to Year: Down 32.4%
Change from Peak: Down 43.1% in 32 months

The following chart shows the Bay Area HPI scaled such that the May 2006 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Bay Area HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (October 2000).

Thanks to a little mini-boom and bust in 2001 compared to a steady and steep decline in 2009, home prices in the Bay Area “rewound” seventeen months from December to January. The Bay Area is by far the furthest rewound market of those that Redfin serves.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare Bay Area’s performance to other areas across the country:

And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

At 43% off their peak, home prices in the Bay Area have fallen further than every market Redfin serves, and are “bested” in the entire 20-city Case-Shiller sample by only Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Keep in mind that Case-Shiller’s definition of the Bay Area is fairly broad, so it is certain that home shoppers out there right now will be finding some neighborhoods where prices have not fallen as far, and others that have fallen further.

*[Case-Shiller defines the San Francisco Bay Area as the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo.]

Wells Fargo Tops Bay Area Lending

Mortgage Data Web sent me an email today with the top mortgage lenders in the Bay Area for January of this year. I broke out the purchases from the re-fi’s to give you a sense of who the top players in each category are if you’re looking either to buy or re-fi.

It’s interesting to note the huge re-fi boom, the unpopularity of ARMs and what seems to be a relatively high number of construction loans all things considered.

Note: I don’t know why there is a few off by one errors.

March City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

Let’s take our monthly look at which cities and towns have the most price reductions.

The following charts show the percent of MLS, FSBO or REO listings that were price-reduced at some point before leaving the market (either sold or removed unsold from the market) in the past 90 days. Cities/towns or neighborhoods in which the number of homes taken off the market was too small to provide believable estimates are excluded from ranking.

For those that are interested, I have uploaded the full data set in Excel format here. The downloadable Excel file also includes charts showing the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings.

First up are the top ten cities with the most price-reduced listings:

Of the 119 cities/towns we ranked in the Bay Area this month, 61 (51%) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. Aptos and Alamo held their top positions from last month, bringing along four other cities from last month’s top ten as well.

Getting a little more granular, let’s look at the top ten the Bay Area neighborhoods for price reductions:

Of the 109 neighborhoods we ranked in the Bay Area this month, 41 (38%) had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. Last month’s #1 Country Club Crest actually gained two percentage points, but down in Santa Clara County, Alexander blew every other neighborhood out of the water with a stunning 87% of listings coming off the market with at least one price reduction.

We’re still seeing a degree of consistency in which neighborhoods and cities have the most price reductions. Are sellers in these locations just not very good at finding the right market price in the first place, or are they so anxious to sell that they drop the price early and often? Either way, the regions with the really high percentage of reduced-price homes are probably a good place to go bargain-hunting.

Largest Saratoga Discounts Found in $1.5m+ Homes

Readers, bloggers, and media had questions about what was going on in Saratoga based on our blog post about the biggest discounts in the Bay Area.

Redfin lead agent, Jim Holt, took a look at the 17 sales that have occurred in the last 3 months and found that the largest discounts (86.8% sale to list) are occurring for higher priced homes ($1.5+ mil), while mid range homes ($1mil to $1.5 mil) aren’t receiving as large a discount (95.6% sale to list).

See the raw data for yourself. [CSV]

Biggest Discounts March Update

Let’s have an update on where buyers are currently getting the biggest discount off the asking price. Our goal in sharing this data is to help potential buyers to know which neighborhoods are softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, to better equip you when making an offer, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the chart below, we have taken all sales data from the last two months in Redfin’s Bay Area service area and sorted it by zip code. We calculated the overall difference between the sale price and the list price. Note that this reflects the final list price, after all price drops in the listing. Any zips with fewer than ten sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings, but interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

For a quick look at where a given zip code is located, just type it into the Redfin search box, or drop by the handy USNaviguide.com zip code map.

Here are the top ten zip codes with the largest overall discount:

The overall discount for the Bay Area bumped up slightly from last month’s 3.0% up to 3.2%. The Saratoga zip code 95070 stood out far above all the rest at nearly 10% off on average.

Here are the ten zip codes with the smallest discounts:

Of the 1,741 sales we tracked in the 2-month period, just 30 homes sold for more than 20% off the asking price, while 409 homes sold for more than asking.

As a whole, the Bay Area is trending toward slightly larger discounts. As we continue to watch this data we will be able to get a better picture of what sale-to-list discounts tell us about the overall health of the local real estate market. Once we get enough data points, we’ll be able to plot the overall discount trend on a line chart for an interesting picture of the market.

Redfin’s Bay Area February Update: 726 Homes Toured, 101 Offers

Beginning with February, Redfin is publishing monthly Bay Area real estate stats, summarizing what we’re up to in the market, and how the market is changing. This is our first crack at it, which means we’ll only present a few numbers for February.

Market Activity

• 11,759 new MLS listings (the current total is 40,815).
• 10,678 price reductions.
• 32.9% of the homes for sale are foreclosed properties being sold by banks, also known as Real Estate Owned (REO) listings. (We handled over 60 offers on REOs in the Bay Area in the past two months).
• 84,010 homes were added to Bay Area Redfin users’ favorites list.

Brokerage Activity

• 726 homes were toured by our clients through Redfin field agents.
• 61 people attended our home buying class.
• 101 clients made offers.
• 28 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction surveys and posted an online review.
• 97% of our February Bay Area clients would recommend Redfin to a friend.

What else do you want to know? Your comments and suggestions are at the core of our goal to better serve our customers. We’d love to hear from you. If you haven’t already, join the Bay Area Redfin forum and sign up for listing alerts and our monthly newsletter. As always, thanks for using Redfin!