With a pronounced drop in sales and jump in reductions, the list price per square foot of the homes which are in contract across San Francisco, which is a leading indicator, has dropped over 10 percent since May and has just slipped under $900 per square foot for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019, prior to the pandemic having hit.

At the same, the number of homes on the market is over 40 percent higher than at the same time last year, with nearly 80 percent more single-family homes and over 80 percent more inventory than at the end of 2019.

Expect a further drop in pricing through the end of the year along with a rash of unsold properties being withdrawn from the MLS before returning anew in the spring, none of which should catch any plugged-in readers by surprise. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

10 thoughts on “Price per Square Foot in San Francisco Keeps Dropping”
  1. Only desperation sellers in the market right now. We’ll see price per square foot start to pick back up in the spring.

    1. I think it depends on the type of housing and location. Since the start of November multiple single family homes in the “regular” part of Sea Cliff (avenues, no ocean view) have traded north of $1400 psf.

      Despite how much the big tech companies have sold off on the market, owners of stock/RSU’s have made a bundle in the past 30 months. I think it would be instructive to look at condo pricing vs. single family. And location matters, perhaps more than it used to.

      1. I have access to PPSF data split by neighborhood and by condo vs SFH. It’s what you would expect – SOMA/Mission Bay/Dogpatch modern condos are getting hammered. “Outer neighborhood” stuff is doing great.

    1. Price per square foot over time, and rental prices over time, are two prized charts that the editor seems to keep as a trade secret 🙂

  2. soccermom is implying a good point, which is (I think): if it’s true that, according to CNBC the other day, that:

    Home prices are inflated, up 41% since the start of the pandemic, and that is about ten times the historical home appreciation rate

    then if prices come down a marginal amount, it won’t matter much because buyers will still be paying more than called for by the mean appreciation rate.

    And of course, leading indicators, of which homes in contract is an admittedly good one, only really matter if the volume of transactions is meaningful.

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