According to DataQuick, recorded home sales volume in San Francisco was up 23.7% on a year-over-year basis last month (616 recorded sales in May ’10 versus 498 sales in May ‘09) and up 43.9% as compared to the month prior. As we noted last month, “keep in mind an incentive to push April closings into May this year.”
For context, May sales figures for San Francisco from 2004 to 2008 were 863 (2004), 773 (2005), 691 (2006), 616 (2007), and 593 (2008). And from 2004 to 2009 the average April to May sales volume gain was 8.7%. Again, see last sentence in paragraph above.
San Francisco’s median sales price in May was $636,500, up a nominal 0.4% compared to May ’09 ($634,000) and down 8.1% compared to the month prior.
For the greater Bay Area, recorded sales volume in May was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis and up 18.0% from the month prior (8,264 recorded sales in May ’10 versus 7,447 in May ’09 and 7,003 in April ’10), while the recorded median sales price rose 20.1% on a year-over-year basis, up 10.8% compared to the month prior.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, think mix (and understand medians).
Jumbo loans, mortgages above the old conforming limit of $417,000, accounted for 35.1 percent of last month’s purchase lending, up from 31.5 percent in April and 25.8 percent in May 2009. Last month’s figure was the highest since it was 38.7 percent in December 2007. However, before the August 2007 credit crunch hit, jumbos accounted for nearly 60 percent of the market.
In May, 13.1 percent of all home purchase loans were ARMs, up from 11.1 percent in April and up from 3.5 percent a year ago. May’s ARM level was the highest since September 2008, but was still well below the monthly average ARM rate of nearly 50 percent over the last decade.
Meantime, federally-insured FHA loans continue to drive many first-time buyer purchases and some move-up activity. The low-down-payment loans made up 24.6 percent of Bay Area purchase lending last month, down from 25.4 percent in April but up from 23.9 percent a year ago and 8.1 percent two years ago.
At the extremes, Santa Clara recorded a 28.2% increase in sales volume (a gain of 476 transactions) on a 18.0% increase in median sales price in May while Solano recorded a 7.6% decline in sales volume (a loss of 54 transactions) on a 15.6% increase in median.
As always, keep in mind that DataQuick reports recorded sales which not only includes activity in new developments, but contracts that were signed (“sold”) many months or even years prior and are just now closing escrow (or being recorded).
∙ Bay Area $500K-Plus Home Sales Jump [DQNews]
∙ San Francisco Recorded Sales Activity In April: Up 6.5% YOY [SocketSite]
∙ He’s It’s Back: California’s $10,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit Returns [SocketSite]
∙ Medians Are Up, But Don’t Confuse That With Increasing “Prices” [SocketSite]
Year over year SF median on 1498 sales versus 2048 sales is up from 680K to 709K.
Meantime, federally-insured FHA loans continue to drive many first-time buyer purchases and some move-up activity
editor: do you have the data for FHA loan usage in SF itself? that would be interesting IMO.
This seems like a pretty healthy sales number for SF even if you neutralize the tax credit timing distortion. Adding April(428) and May (616) sales together, the result (1044 sales) appears to stand up well versus other comparable sales periods.
April-May, 2009, for example, yielded 900 sales. That’s a 15% YOY increase.
“editor: do you have the data for FHA loan usage in SF itself? that would be interesting IMO.”
A lot of general GSE/FHA/VA loan info for SF County specifically would be helpful. It would be nice to compare the 96.5% of all home loans being government-sponsored nationwide to what that number is in SF (and how it’s distributed). I imagine it’s hard to come by this kind of data unless you have paid access to the datasets.