While the inventory of listed homes for sale in San Francisco was even on a year-over-year basis for the first time in over two years at the beginning of August, the seasonal uptick in post-Labor Day listing activity isn’t keeping pace and our early count puts the current inventory level at 10 percent lower than at the same time last year at which point it was 47 percent lower than the year before.
If you’ve seen reports of a sudden deluge of listings, understand the difference between seasonality and a systemic change in the market.
UPDATE (9/16): While our early count of the number of homes listed for sale in San Francisco was running 10 percent lower on year over year basis Friday morning, inventory levels ended up ending the week down 2 percent versus the same time last year.
Inventory levels are currently 8 percent lower for single-family homes but 3 percent higher for condos.
∙ For The First Time In Over Two Years, Inventory Is Even In SF [SocketSite]
Thats a “double-digit” drop in inventory.
Puts the “double-digit” drop in sales into some kind of perspective, then.
Are interest rates really driving the market, or is it inventory..
[Editor’s Note: That’s strange, because despite the lack of inventory, sales volume was up 31 percent on a year-over-year basis in July as rates spiked in May and June.]
I think the editor is suggesting that increasing mortgage rates are going to hamper the have an impact on the number of homes sold, and I agree with this. For the time being however, it appears to be having no impact on prices and weeks of supply is still at VERY low numbers.
If the result of higher rates is fewer buyers (or buyers that can’t afford as much) AND fewer sellers, then I doubt the rise in rates will have much impact on prices, at least here in SF.
I’m sure rates going up will impact prices in general, but this is one of the situations where SF can be different than the norm.
UPDATE: While our early count of the number of homes listed for sale in San Francisco was running 10 percent lower on year over year basis Friday morning, inventory levels ended up ending the week down 2 percent versus the same time last year.
Inventory levels are currently 8 percent lower for single-family homes but 3 percent higher for condos.