A key sentence in the Chronicle’s recent overview of the Bay Area housing market: “The trouble with housing forecasts, experts say, is that there is no single market but rather a wide variety of local markets.” And while the “Bay Area” median sales price might be up 3.5% year-over-year, the median sales price in local San Francisco is down 0.6%.
In addition, the current inventory of existing homes for sale in San Francisco is up to a 3.5 month supply (about 1600 active listings, 20% of which have been reduced in price at least once). And while that’s still not a lot of inventory, we do expect to see a significant jump after Labor Day (and estimate that supply is currently up ~50% year-over-year).
A reader also points out that in the accompanying Chronicle poll, 14% of the respondents answered yes to the question, “Do you expect to buy a home in the near future?” We can’t help but notice that’s about the same as the current affordability index (12%).
∙ Home sales fall as prices flatten [SFGate]
The 1600 listings may be misleading as 284 of them are TIC listings that are also sometimes listed again as 2-4 unit buildings in the MLS.
Matt – Great point. We try to take that into account along with the difference between “Active” (which we include) and “Active Contingent” (which we don’t), and more problematically, existing homes that are not listed on the MLS (FSBO, pocket, etc.).
Our bigger challenge is accounting for the inventory of new homes which, for the most part, are not included in our calculations. And we’re not talking about the 2000+ units that are under construction in projects like The Infinity, One Rincon Hill, Arterra, The Hayes, etc.; but rather the 100+ units that we estimate are currently available for occupancy in projects like the Watermark, The Beacon, 50 Lansing, etc.
Obviously it’s imperfect, but if anything, we believe we’re being conservative with regard to our estimate of available housing inventory in San Francisco.