While the normal winter market slowdown is upon us, and inventory of Active listed single-family homes, condos, and TIC listings in San Francisco fell 8.0% over the past few weeks, listed inventory levels are up 8.7% on a year-over-year basis.
Also worth noting, the number of active listings that have undergone at least one price reduction (440) is up 18.9% as compared to the same time last year.
∙ SocketSite’s San Francisco Listed Housing Inventory Update: 10/29 [SocketSite]
Is this from the SF MLS? Just curious because movoto is showing listed inventory of 1,444 while zip realty shows 1,645. Maybe pocket listings are skewing these numbers lower, or double-counts are skewing the other two higher. Any CII updates forthcoming? Seeing that YOY would be helpful.
It is odd the numbers differ so widely. Realtor.com counts 834 SFRs, 969 Condo/coops, and 330 multi-family homes. 2174 total. We have good info on homes sold, so these differences have a huge impact on the number of months of inventory analysis.
Hooray! Socketsite can finally show that inventory is a little higher than last year after all year of trying! 🙂
Realtor.com has quite a few duplicate listings and out-of-area listings in a search for any 1 area, so no surprise that their numbers are higher.
I’ve enjoyed seeing this inventory graph.
I’ll be most interested in what happens with inventory this spring.
2 reasons:
1. in other metro areas, the explosion of inventory occurred right around the Superbowl in the year that their downturns began
2. a lot of closings should begin this spring (ORH, Infinity, etc). it will help us to see if the people close, or if they close then list on MLS right away, or if they don’t close and it goes to the builder.
if a downturn happens though, it will be slow and boring to watch. They usually are. Like watching the paint dry on a picture of grass growing.
That said I’m also cognizant of the numbers of times RE bears have said “just wait until…”
I think the MLS listing inventory is pretty useless. So many agents and sellers go outside of this system in order to manipulate people into believing that the inventory is lower than it actually is. When do we get the CII updates?
These are a bit more telling.
I predict that the invenory numbers will drop less due to the winter effect than in has in the past. i think a lot of sellers this years don’t have the option to just takle their house off the market until spring. There are a lot of scared homeowners who are afraid if they don’t sell now, they are going to lsoe 15-20% more and there are a lot of overleveraged homeowners as well in dnager of foreclosure.
The active inventory counts looks like the MLS count for San Francisco county/city. About 54% are condos and 46% SFH’s. Of the 636 (or so) active SFH’s, 283 are in District 10 with a 75+ DOM.
I am bearish on the market too and feel that economic fundamentals will push prices down – at least a little. But, the supply is just so limited. It doesn’t take that many willing buyers to keep prices high. Maybe the new projects coming on line will have an impact.
Spencer – interesting comment: I can see the overall advantage to sellers in manipulating the inventory to appear lower, but how do the agents/sellers actually do that? I mean if you were selling a home or condo, wouldn’t you want it listed in the MLS for the widest possible exposure? Wouldn’t you demand that the agent use the MLS (and any other site available)? I’ve never understood pocket listings or private deals either – how do these benefit sellers? (And if they don’t, why would a seller put up with them?)
Not a whole lot of condos and lofts on the market right now. More than a few buildings have zero units for sale. The rest have pretty minimal availability. We’ll see what happens in Mid-Jan to early Feb.
“I’ve never understood pocket listings or private deals either – how do these benefit sellers?”
As someone who purchased a pocket listing and had two friends recently do the same, usually the motivation is convenience and/or privacy. In our case the family had 3 very young children. They didn’t want to disrupt their lives by moving out and felt if they continued to live there while listing it they’d take a haircut anyway. So, they set a price they could live with and decided if they got it they’d sell. In these cases the sellers typically have lived in the house for a long time and have a low cost basis relative to the current market.
Personally, I’d never do this. 2 months after we closed, a house 5 doors down and smaller went for $600k more. But for some people time/convenience is more import than top $$$.
Private deals benefit benefits both buyers and sellers, as the buyer gets a discount vs. retail and the seller gets paid more (no 5-7% realtor commission). So everyone wins.
I’ve had neighbors sell houses before they even contacted an agent and listed the property….they just told all their friends they wanted to sell. All it takes is a desirable home, a wide social network, and a good attorney to hammer out the details.
I think there’s some confusion here. We’re not talking about FSBOs or private sales. Pocket listings are properties that are listed with brokerages, are advertised on agent’s websites, etc. So sellers still pay commissions. But for some reason, these properties are not added to the MLS and never show up as inventory.
To FSBO at 12:02PM: I asked exactly the same questions last time this topic came up but got no clear answers.
isn’t the pocket listing a way to minimize the work on the part of the listing agent? no mls, no openhouses. it’s also a way for a skiddish seller to test the market.