Since peaking at well over 1700 Active listings at the end of August July, housing inventory in San Francisco has steadily dropped over the past four weeks to approximately 1500 listings (the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of June, but still around a three month supply). Three factors at work: sales, withdrawals, and waiting (until after Labor Day to list).
Once again, we expect to see a significant jump in inventory over the next few weeks. And the percentage of active listings that have been re-priced (i.e., reduced) stands at ~21% (according to ZipRealty).
Update: It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the editorial staff. In case you didn’t already figure it out, listings peaked at the end of July (and not August). Either that or we’re suddenly able to see four weeks into the future…
∙ Nobody Actually Owns A Home In “Bay Area” [SocketSite]
Interesting that San Jose inventory keeps building with no pullback.
If you back out 2-4 unit buildings and TIC’s there are more like 1000 active listings, a two month supply.
Why don’t TICs and 2-4 unit buildings count?
There are 256 TIC’s on the market right now. 63 sold in August, a four month supply with an average 57 days on market. Most of these are also listed again under 2-4 unit buildings.
Matt – that’s true, but please keep in mind that we’re not including the majority of new/pre-construction units in these stats as well. And while TICs are not the same as Condos, they do compete for buyers.
The percentage of Active listings that are TICs has remained relatively constant (~20%) since the beginning of the year, and apples to apples, the inventory of Active SFH/Condo listings has fallen about 12% over the past couple of weeks after holding steady at around 1,150 units for the past three months (up about 35% since the beginning of the year).
Thanks for “plugging in.”
what’s the reason for waiting to after labor day to list?
Lots of people (including agents) tend to spend August taking vacations, making the most of their last few weeks of summer, or getting their kids ready to go back to school – not thinking about buying or selling a house. Why risk having a listing get stale and “days on the market” build simply because buyers are out of town? And from an agents perspective, who wants to spend their Labor Day weekend holding an open house…
Dear Socket Site,
If you are going to present real estate data information, you should at least try to be accurate, especially to the audience that views your site. The vast majority of those are interested in single family homes, condominiums, coopeative apartments and tenants in common apartments.
You quote of 1,700 active listings does a disservice to your readers.
Presently Tuesday, September 5, 2006 at 8:00 PM, according to the San Francisco Association of Realtors there are:
Single Family Homes for sale: 446;
Condos/Coops for sale: 448;
TIC apartments for sale: 198;
Total for sale (not units):1,092;
2-4 Units, 5+ Units, other for sale: 556;
This does include a number of new projects, but not their entire inventory, that is for sale.
As far as sales activity for the month of August, there is a slow down from the record breaking year of 2005, with 27% to 28% less number of sales, but the median selling price (50% below/50% above) shows a minimal (1%) increase, except for TIC’s which median selling price is 6% less than August 2005.
Sales Activity for August, 2006
Single Family Homes: 215 – 27% less than Aug 2005;
Median Selling Price:$840K 1% more than Aug 2005;
Condo’s/Coops: 213 – 28% less than Aug 2005;
Median Selling Price $735K 1.3% more than Aug 2005;
TIC Apartments: 57 – 11% more than Aug 2005;
Median Selling Price:$585K-6.7% less than Aug 2005;
For those of you shopping for a new home, put on your dancing shoes as the next 2 weeks will be the largest increase in new listings since last spring, then the market will slow down from October through January, the same as it has done for the past 50+ years.
Frederick
Frederick,
Mea culpa! We just updated the post: “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the editorial staff. In case you didn’t already figure it out, listings peaked (1700) at the end of July (and not August). Either that or we’re suddenly able to see four weeks into the future…”
And while we might not slice and dice the data in exactly the same ways (e.g., including 2-4 unit listings), we are accurate. And just as important, we are consistent in our methodology from month-to-month (in order to identify trends).
As we wrote last month, “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.”
Thanks for “plugging in.” And for helping to keep us honest (and accurate).