According to the March 2008 S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index (pdf) , single-family home prices in the San Francisco MSA fell 3.5% from February ’08 to March ’08 and are down 20.2% year-over-year. For the broader 10-City composite (CSXR), year-over-year price growth is down 15.3% (having fallen 2.2% from February).
The decline in the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index – which covers all nine U.S. census divisions – reached well into double digits, recording a 14.1% decline in the 1st quarter of 2008 versus the 1st quarter of 2007, the largest in the series 20-year history. As a comparison, during the 1990-91 housing recession the annual rate bottomed at -2.8%. The 10-City and 20-City Composites also set new records, with annual declines of -15.3% and -14.4%, respectively.
Prices fell across the bottom two price tiers for the San Francisco MSA, while the top tier remained unchanged on a month-over-month basis but declined 2.0% year-over-year.
The bottom third (under $489,431 at the time of acquisition) fell 5.3% from February to March (down 34.7% YOY); the middle third fell 4.5% from February to March (down 23.9% YOY); and the top third (over $734,115 at the time of acquisition) fell 0.04% from February to March (down 8.0% YOY).
And according to the Index, home values for the bottom third of the market in the San Francisco MSA have returned to June 2003 levels, the middle third to March 2004 levels, and the top third is holding at March 2005 levels.
The standard SocketSite S&P/Case-Shiller footnote: The HPI only tracks single-family homes (not condominiums which represent half the transactions in San Francisco), is imperfect in factoring out changes in property values due to improvements versus actual market appreciation (although they try their best), and includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, and Alameda in the “San Francisco” index (i.e., the greater MSA).
∙ National Trend of Home Price Declines Continued into the First Quarter of 2008 [S&P]
∙ February S&P/Case-Shiller: San Francisco MSA Decline Accelerates [SocketSite]
Ooh, all those little lines on the chart are converging! Isn’t that a sign of the end times?
Seriously, 20% drop nationwide, and 0% drop in the real city. When are we gonna catch up to the rest of the country?? This is getting silly now.
imho, this market still has a long way to go to be back to historical affordability (4 times average salary). And SF will probably follow its surrounding areas.
Agreed, the market in SF has been pretty resilient, but we now see more and more price reductions (mostly from unrealistic expectations).
Passive flippers are out, sweat equity is still around for a few to grab, the newly built condo market is slow.
It will be a great buyer market in 2 years.
I don’t think 4X median salary is every going to happen in SF. from 98 to now the price/income ratio averages X5-6 range, well above the national X3-4 range. During the peak SF hit the X9-10 range.
Now, the only way to really reach that range again is to see a decline in prices and a rise in wages. The return to affordability is not just about price declines but also is wrapped up in wage increases.
Editor, can you give us the index numbers for the three tiers?
bdb,
Or, we could simply see larger drops in the surrounding areas to bring prices for the region back into line. With gas prices skyrocketing and SF still having a huge jobs/housing imbalance, I wouldn’t be surprised to see bigger than expected drops in the closer in but still commuter burbs and nearly no drops in the city proper.
Let me agree to disagree. 98 was the start of the 10-year uptick, but nothing tells us that we will not go back to the situation in mid-90s. It is highly unlikely, but millions who were saying “never” have been humbled lately.
In the down side: SF has 70-odd% renters, mostly protected and often low paying (pressure to hold on a sweet deal), the median salary is 70K, median prices are 10 X median salary. There are many imbalances in this market and time will tell if they will correct.
On the plus side, investors (local and outsiders) are still buying up the upper 1/3, middle class families still look for the same 3BR holy grail, and SF is still the greatest city on earth.
Interesting numbers. If you look at the data, the lower 1/3 peaked in August ’06 and is now down a whopping 38%. The middle 1/3 peaked about the same time (May ’06) and is now down 25.6%. But the top tier did not peak until August ’07 and is down 10.5% since then. The decline in all tiers really began accelerating after the August 2007 credit crunch hit, which was predictable since cheap, easy money fueled the boom both in SF and elsewhere.
The big question now is how long will this continue. One notable development in SF is that the condo market (excluded from Case Shiller) really seems to have turned south in just the last few months. Listings appear to be at the highest level in at least two years while median prices (particularly $/sf) have fallen about 10% just in the last few months, and sales are down. Condo prices are pretty clearly on their way further down. SFR listings are also up, but not as much as condos. My take is that the condo and SFR markets in SF are fairly (not perfectly) intertwined — you don’t see significant price trends in one that differ from the other. CSI shows that SFRs are being hit too (maybe some leveling off?) But we’ll see in the next several months if the hit to SFRs is as steep as with condos.
Where does this theory that the “commuter burbs” (SV) will have their prices fall while urban centers (SF) will not come from? Wishful thinking?
San Francisco proper does not have an infrastructure to support large job bases inside the city nor does it have the tax environment to foster growth startups. I think its fair to say that most good paying jobs in the region are not in San Francisco. Rising gas prices might, in fact, have the opposite effect on SF prices as people who commute to the valley and peninsula buy homes closer to the job base rather than commit to a long commute.
And BdB – I don’t see salaries going up enough over the next 5 years to make a dent in that side of the affordability equation. Wage earners in the tech industry – our regional manufacturing base – are under constant flat to downward salary pressure due to the global labor pool. Were we seeing booming revenue growth in that sector I might change my tune…but, it ain’t happening right now.
“Rising gas prices might, in fact, have the opposite effect on SF prices as people who commute to the valley and peninsula buy homes closer to the job base rather than commit to a long commute.”
Makes a lot of sense especially if the prices fall significantly in the burbs. That makes moving even more attractive.
It is silly to think that increasing gas prices and falling prices in the burbs will somehow insulate SF proper.
Trip, I saw this set of data on thefrontsteps.com re SF condos. It seems that sales data indicate that condo medians are rising YOY in a majority of SF districts, inlcuding D10, i.e. medians are only down in 3 of the 10 SF districts. See below.
Condominiums
District 1 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 5 11
Median Selling Price 975,000 1,065,000
Average DOM 32 31
District 2 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 4 0
Median Selling Price 712,000
Average DOM 45
District 3 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 2 4
Median Selling Price 652,000 605,000
Average DOM 48 101
District 4 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 10 3
Median Selling Price 631,000 525,000
Average DOM 28 77
District 5 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 23 32
Median Selling Price 950,000 968,000
Average DOM 37 33
District 6 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 24 10
Median Selling Price 777,000 837,500
Average DOM 30 35
District 7 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 25 28
Median Selling Price 1,105,000 1,236,000
Average DOM 28 39
District 8 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 46 32
Median Selling Price 705,000 804,000
Average DOM 57 53
District 9 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 45 44
Median Selling Price 745,000 701,500
Average DOM 45 54
District 10 Apr-07 Apr-08
Number of Sales 6 1
Median Selling Price 544,500 589,000
Average DOM 47 4
Where does this theory that the “commuter burbs” (SV) will have their prices fall while urban centers (SF) will not come from? Wishful thinking?
Silicon Valley is not commuter burbs. There are plenty of jobs in Silicon Valley. Eastern Contra Costa and Alameda, as well as parts of Solano and Napa are the areas that I was referring to.
There is still a massive jobs/housing imbalance in San Francisco, regardless of what everyone seems to think. Census numbers don’t lie. Santa Clara and San Mateo also have jobs/housing imbalances.
badlydrawnbear, I agree with Shocked: Wage increases cannot make the market more affordable at this current rate. Globalization and other factors are actually making real wages go down and inflation is only 3-5% depending on the source.
The only way this market can go back to historical affordability averages is prices, and things sometimes tend to overcorrect.
Ask the Japanese how long it took for homes to become affordable again.
sorry I was not clear, I do not expect wage increases to correct the imbalance. However, I do not expect price declines to correct the imbalance either.
It will be a combination of wage increases, price declines, and inflation (eating at the Real value of the home while allow the Nominal value to hold steady) that will correct the bubble.
How much of each component will make up this mix I don’t know. But I suspect with the pressures on wages and rising commodity prices, that it will most likely be heavy on the price declines and inflation sides.
I just didn’t want to exclude wage increases as a factor for bringing the price to income ratio back into line with historically supported levels.
In a city where only 30%(?) of people buy homes and the rest historically rent, median income is pretty irrelevant for affordability comparisons.
Should be using say, upper quartile median income instead as a better guide.
fronzi,
you wrote ” SF has 70-odd% renters, mostly protected and often low paying (pressure to hold on a sweet deal).”
any evidence? any link?
Craig, we’re looking at two different things. You’re looking at median sales prices for those units that actually sold in April (about 20% of listed units). I’m looking at current listings. The former is backward looking (and I don’t think it’s necessary to discuss yet again the limited utility of median sales figures) and the latter is forward looking.
Where does this theory that the “commuter burbs” (SV) will have their prices fall while urban centers (SF) will not come from? Wishful thinking?
Not really. There have been numerous articles and studies done arguing this very point. And I believe the OP meant the East Bay, Solano-Napa, Stockton areas when he meant “commuter suburbs.” The Silicon Valley obviously has plenty of jobs and should be considered part of the “core”, as is SF.
Note, this argument doesn’t even take into account that bridge tolls may also be raised in the near future (GGB going to $7, BB going to $5 or above).
Not to mention that there are 3 to 4 times the number of people who commute in to SF compared to out of SF.
Bring on $10 Gasoline!!!
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/05/rising-gas-pric.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/04/why-the-housing.html
http://www.ceosforcities.org/newsroom/pr/files/Driven%20to%20the%20Brink%20FINAL.pdf
Which explains why the historic price/income ratio for SF is around X6 versus the national level which is around X3.
I stand corrected. The 70-off% comment I posted should have been 60-odd%. The statistics show between 36 and 40% owner-occupied homes.
http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/hrc/rtr/ex11.pdf
This document shows also that SF is in total contrast with the rest of the region, which is 60-40 in favor of the owner-occupied.
“” SF has 70-odd% renters, mostly protected and often low paying (pressure to hold on a sweet deal).”
any evidence? any link?”
Check out:
http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-San-Francisco-California.html
The data is a bit stale at this point (suggests 65% OO — believe that I’ve seen more recent articles indicating that the number has creeped up to 70%)
Sorry, should’ve been 35% OO (65% renters)
San Francisco proper does not have an infrastructure to support large job bases inside the city nor does it have the tax environment to foster growth startups.
You must have never been to San Francisco before. There are far more jobs in San Francisco than workers. Our net daytime population is 22% higher than our residential population. You may have noticed that our central business district is served by two mainline railroads and a metro subway, as well as an interstate highway.
Is there data on the number of protected tenants? I’d like to know that too.
Various SF statistical/census information can be found reviewing various documents on the Planning Deparment’s website at http://www.sfgov.org/planning, in particular the Housing Element, Commerce and Industry Report, Housing Inventory Report, and Downtown Plan Monitoring Report. A few tidbits:
-Renter versus owner is roughly 60/40% (renters are about 60 something percent as I recall)
-About 50% of SF residents work in SF
-According to ABAG (the Association of Bay Area Governments) SF is one of the only areas with a jobs/housing balance, meaning that we have about as many jobs as employed residents
-San Francisco remains the densest employment center in the region with over 535,000 jobs at the end of 2006 (EDD, the CA. Employment Development Department, also reports that this is up slightly for 2007 but official numbers aren’t out yet); nearly 40% of these jobs can be found in the core Downtown C3 zoned area that covers 343 acres or about .5 square miles.
Dunno about what the proportion of propected tenants is, but there is a lot of demographic info there (from 2002):
http://www.parks.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/rentboard/housingdatabook/sfhousingdatabook.pdf
Jeffrey:
I live in SF and have run a company here for several years. Our central business district (I assume you mean the financial district) is not served by CalTrain and only marginally served by the 101. The Muni is a joke. I lived briefly in San Mateo and it took me less time to commute to the city from San Mateo than it does to use Muni to downtown from Cole Valley.
There is little to no parking that isn’t prohibitively expensive and the commercial office space that does have cheap parking is not near any of the regional commute options. If you don’t think this is a problem, try to hire talented tech workers that do NOT live in SF. The first thing they note is the lack of parking.
And this doesn’t begin to address the problems for startups. The SF payroll tax is an order of magnitude more than the business tax for any neighboring city. If you are a growth startup with plans to expand rapidly – you can’t justify to investors a reason to grow in SF. Sorry. I’m sure one could name several startups in SF – but for every one you can name, I can name five in the South Bay and Peninsula – and those five will typically have more funding and employ more people.
But if you disagree – you sound like you work for the govt here – I would like to see the numbers. I maintain that for the highly skilled, high paying jobs (i.e the ones that can “afford” SF housing) SF has become a bedroom community for Peninsula and South Bay workers and not a destination to work.
You really cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about housing markets and the number of people who work in a city and live there. Detroit has a huge daytime/worker influx of people who do not live in the city. But that certainly does not mean that Detroit’s housing market must have a rosy outlook. No, I’m not saying that SF is Detroit. But the fact that SF’s employment population is higher than its residential population says nothing about housing markets. Many, many other factors go into the equation.
Fronzi, if you don’t actually know, then why did you say this?
“SF has 70-odd% renters, mostly protected and often low paying (pressure to hold on a sweet deal)”
If you want to hire talented tech worker and commuting is an issue, let them work from home 2-3 days a week instead of extracting them from their humble abode to park them in cubicle farms. This is a more and more common to retain good people. Plus it is good for the environment!
my question too. where do you get “mostly protected”?
“But if you disagree – you sound like you work for the govt here – I would like to see the numbers. I maintain that for the highly skilled, high paying jobs (i.e the ones that can “afford” SF housing) SF has become a bedroom community for Peninsula and South Bay workers and not a destination to work.”
This chart isn’t specific to high paying jobs, but for overall jobs, the # people commuting to SF is more than twice the # commuting from SF:
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/Commute-Maps/SanFrCommute.pdf
Buildings built prior 1979 are rent-controlled, and SF is overwhelmingly a city of old buildings. Apart from the SOMA area, new construction is not very common, and it is very hard to transform a rent-controlled building into a non-rent controlled one, which limits tear-downs.
America, particularly California, has long been dependant on cheap oil. This dependency is about to rear its ugly head, well detailed in “peak oil” and the “death of suburbia” theories. With Bush going over to Saudi Arabia and getting zero traction in getting them to release more oil, with oil reserves dwindling, and the near exponential rise in fuel consumption in India and China, $8-$10-$15/gallon gas is inevitable in the near future.
Pertaining to SF, an estimated 265K commute into the city for work. Whereas, an estimated 96K commute out of the city to work.
To me, this shows that there is a greater draw to live within the city than out of the city for purposes of employment.
I predict a scenario not unlike what has happened in Manhattan in the near future. For what it’s worth, SF is well prepared for the challenge of this transition with the Transbay Terminal projects, High Speed Rail, and Central Subway projects all in line for the next decade and beyond.
With this Suburbs may well be a relic of the past.
“Buildings built prior 1979 are rent-controlled, and SF is overwhelmingly a city of old buildings. Apart from the SOMA area, new construction is not very common, and it is very hard to transform a rent-controlled building into a non-rent controlled one, which limits tear-downs.”
Please. You keep doing the same thing on here, day in and day out.
Does anyone understand these charts?? The top chart appears to estimate that prices rose only about 22% between 2002 and late 2005, the height of the run-up in prices. That cannot be correct for SF. And prices did not dive 35% between 2001 and 2002.
Am I reading this correctly? If so, this is pretty inaccurate info for the markets I follow.
” 2002 and late 2005, the height of the run-up in prices”
The biggest runup started in late 2004 through summer 2006. If you look at any neighborhood in SF the difference between 2004 and 2005 will be enormous.
I do not believe Suburbs are a thing of the past. The draw to the city is undeniable, but collapsing prices in the the farthest commutable suburbs might attract people who like the very cheap large houses.
Think telecommuting. Think smaller commuting for instance to new job centers in Walnut Creek. Think families who want to have a real life.
Not everyone wants to squeeze their kids into a European-sized condo. The prices in Noe are there to prove it.
@puzzled:
You are referring to a year over year chart.
Prices did not dive 35% from 2001-2002. Prices were increasing at a 30% clip in 2001 then fell about negative 5% in 2002.
You have to think in year over year terms.
And yet this chart shows only about a 10% price increase between 04 and 06. Can that be right?
“Am I reading this correctly? If so, this is pretty inaccurate info for the markets I follow. ”
No, you are not reading this correctly.
Between 2001 and 2002 (in the wake of 9/11), the SF MSA went from a YoY increase rate of about 30% to a YoY decrease of about 5%. In other words, if a property was 500K in 2000, it was 650K in 2001 (30% increase) and 617.5K in 2002 (5% decrease).
As for between 2002 and 2005, these are YoY increases — so the 22% in 2005 means a 22% increase over what the median price was in 2004 (i.e., YoY).
mk92,
Regarding in/outflow commute, the chart you provided is based on 2000 census data. I would be interested to see if that has changed significantly.
I get it. Thanks mk92.
I don’t have more recent data, but I doubt the gap has narrowed much if at all (given all the .com jobs in the valley that existed as of the 2000 census but are history now).
puzzled,
the top chart is a “YoY Price change” chart, not an overall price chart.
Which means for instance that in January 2001, the increase in price was around 30% but the prices then decreased a few percentage points.
It’s very tricky to look at monthly numbers because of seasonality and psychology (dotcom bubble, please meet 9/11)
It would be better to draw an average between early 98 and early 2006. The line should be around 13-15%. this is the size of the bubble that still has to pop, imho.
Puzzled — the top chart shows the year-over-year changes, not the cumulative change. The latter is reflected in the bottom chart. Thus, as fluj notes, there was a huge run-up in prices from ’04 to ’05 (about 22%) which followed about a 10% increase in ’03.
The bottom chart hides the big 2002 to 2006 run-up because it is scaled over such a long 21-year period. If you look at the actual data, it is a little easier to see it. From 1/1/02 to the Summer 2006 peak, prices were up about 75%. And they are now down 23% since then in a little under two years, back to May 2004 levels overall.
http://www.housingbubblebust.com/DQNews/Tracker.html#NorCalM
Imperfect, but easier to digest.
The chart shows the rate of change (yoy) for the particular market.
So, for example, in SF MSA prices rose at a 30% annualized rate in Jan. 2000, and then they declined at a 5% annualized rate in Jan. of 2002.
For those interested by raw numbers
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/CSHomePrice_History_052703.xls
A few remarkable date/points:
2/94 – 65.79 –> 90s trough
1/00 – 100.00 –> basis for the index
9/01 – 130.95 –> top following dot com bubble
1/02 – 125.13 –> small trough after dot-com bubble burst
5/04 – 167.76 –> last time prices were at today’s prices
5/06 – 218.37 –> all time top
3/08 – 168.38 –> today’s reading
Basically, this market is back to 4 years-ago prices regionaly.
Of course, this is regional data and NOT what happens in SF. But very instructive nonetheless.
I think the rate of change chart would be clearer if it was a bar chart. Shown as a line chart it implies a trend and not a simple measurement
Shocked: I too have run a company, and been involved in a number of startups here in SF. The payroll tax has never been an issue. It’s a point and a half, for crying out loud. You might as well complain that the federal payroll tax is driving startups to Mexico.
Caltrain certainly does serve the C-3 district. Just ask the thousands of commuters who ride it into the city.
The lack of parking in the C-3 is a feature, not a drawback. With more parking, we really wouldn’t have as many jobs as we have today, and our office space would be significantly more expensive.
If we’re still arguing about this, a recent chronicle story decribed the percentage of rent controlled units in SF at 71%. I don’t know where they got that number.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/07/MN4V10FTG0.DTL
Wow, when you get 15-20% drops, you lose your ENTIRE DOWN PAYMENT in one year! Wohoo! Where do I sign up?
And more importantly, with the 10% down buyers upside down practically before they unpack their boxes, leaving them no real reason to continue to make the payments, where do the mortgage investors sign up?
You can see the effect of the subprime resets in CoCo county hitting full stride just now, 9 months AFTER the sub prime blow up.
What happens when the Alt-A resets hit SF next year? And if it takes 9 months to hit full stride, well, then we’ve got more than a year before SF gets hit by this wave.
Uh, if you look at the newyorkfed numbers (http://www.newyorkfed.org/mortgagemaps/), San Francisco has a relatively low proportion of Alt-A mortgages (as compared to the rest of the BA or the rest of CA).
Sorry, to be clear — California has about 49 Alt-A mortgages for every 1000 housing units while San Francisco has about half that number for every 1000 housing units.
Yes, but what’s the percentage of SF borrowers that took out Option ARMs? IMO Option ARM recasts will be a substantially larger problem than resets of Subprime or Alt-A. About 80% of Option ARM borrowers are paying less than interest (neg-am).
wow, the way tipster and unearthly paint the picture you would think that we’d be looking at lots of nervous sellers flooding the market with product. or banks trying to dump their REOs.
so where is all this inventory? must be great deals all over the place huh?
There are a few REOs around. You just need to dig stuff up. One I was following:
461 Chenery. Trustee’s Deed upon Sale on 5/12 for 601,343 and now for sale at 669,900
http://sfarmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N835289172,-N222247,-N,-A,-N13754551
http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/san_francisco/Reports2/showsection.html?propkey=30582242
Wells Fargo tries to get its money back plus costs and stuff.
thanks fronzi,
one crappy, tiny place with no parking in a distant nabe and at $680/ft.
i stand corrected. sounds like prices are crashing!
collapsing prices in the the farthest commutable suburbs might attract people who like the very cheap large houses.
Yeah, we will probably see some of the McMansions broken up and turned into apartments for people on fixed incomes, the disabled, retirees, welfare recipients and the like: people that don’t need to drive to work. Already, my Aunt’s neighborhood has seen an influx of multi-generation families moving into her neighborhood.
In areas that take too much energy to heat or cool, they will probably end up uninhabitable.
A “few” REOs? There’s a whole slew just a few blocks away from 461 Chenery. Excelsior and Bayview are full of them, seen several in Sunset/Parkside, and I’m now starting to see them pop up in Glen Park and Bernal.
Have a look at this realtor’s website. Love how everything is “Sale pending, multiple offers!!” But do a PropertyShark search on most of these and you’ll find that they were REOs that sold for hundreds of thousands less than their previous sale. I know it’s not Noe Valley, but it is happening in San Francisco.
http://farrellreinvestments.com/id76.html
“You can see the effect of the subprime resets in CoCo county hitting full stride just now, 9 months AFTER the sub prime blow up. ”
Man, no. I happen to know for one thing that the Brentwood condo market had taken a complete nosedive at least a full year before last September.
paco,
I did not say prices were crashing. But the market is softening when the area and the place are not prime (what some call the “real SF”).
And talking about distant nabe, you walk 2 blocks and you’re in BH. It’s not central, but it’s not gangstaland neither. One block up and you’re on very desirable Laidley street.
This lot is RH2, by the way. Add one floor up, build a garden floor down, get over the tree canopy, and you’ve got potentially a decent enough view.
Which means there’s equitity sweat waiting to be unlocked (but not at this current price and in THIS market).
dude,
you said;
“I know it’s not Noe Valley, but it is happening in San Francisco.”
i’d venture that all of those listed reos are closer in location/desirability to daly city than noe valley. what happens in the excelsior or hunters point or coco county does not have much to do with sf. now if you were to point out places with a similar demographic (like the better parts of marin or the peninsula) then maybe you would convince me.
Dude, great link. The “Sale pending – Multiple offers” creates the sense of urgency on the remaining properties.
Buy now or be priced forever!
This is so 2006.
“i’d venture that all of those listed reos are closer in location/desirability to daly city than noe valley”
Desirability, maybe. But Excelsior is much closer to Noe than Daly City. Regardless, in reference to your other question, I looked on Trulia’s foreclosure listings. Currently 77 foreclosures listed in Lamorinda, and 205 listed in Marin (limited to only Sausalito, Belvedere, Tiburon, Corte Madera, Mill Valley, and San Rafael).
bernal heights is also a distant nabe.
and as for the chenery property i would not live there for half that price.
i’d much rather go after the example of that place on page
where you can buy a 3 unit at under $400/ft and sell off 2 units while keeping one.
i guess my point is that too many on this board confidently predict that good stuff will come onto the market cheap-then when pressed for examples they offer up crappy stuff in even crappier nabes. will prices keep coming down? yes, and they should for those crappy expensive places in shiity nabes. but for the places i want to live i’m not seeing lower prices or increased selection.
a tale of two cities indeed, for its the best of times and the worst of times…
” what happens in the excelsior or hunters point or coco county does not have much to do with sf.”
Well, except for the fact that two of those three places are in SF I suppose.
maybe to you they are.
i’ve got to remind those d5,d6,d7, d8etc.. area sellers that hunters point pricing is effecting
their property values; after all, as goes the excelsior so goes pac hgts…
First I post:
What happens when the Alt-A resets hit SF next year? And if it takes 9 months to hit full stride, well, then we’ve got more than a year before SF gets hit by this wave.
Then Paco posts:
wow, the way tipster and unearthly paint the picture you would think that we’d be looking at lots of nervous sellers flooding the market with product. or banks trying to dump their REOs.
So Paco, What part of “more than a year” in my post didn’t you get?
And as for fluj’s Brentwood condos starting the process, pretty much the same thing starting in SoMa condos now.
And obviously *something* had to take a nosedive before the problem hit, or the problem never would have hit. You only have a subprime problem when people can’t sell for more than they paid, otherwise people in over their heads just sell. The Alt-A problem will be the same.
And mk92, I don’t think I’d be hanging my hat on the fact that the average % of SF alt-a loans is better than the worst state in the U.S. And do we know if that data includes Jumbo or only conforming loans? I’d suspect it excludes Jumbo loans. Even if it doesn’t, it isn’t saying much.
Nice strawman paco…
damn wind blew him down quick..
slightly OT, but i think worth your consideration..
the end of 6%?
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080527/realtors_settlement.html
okay tipster,
as coco county goes, so goes sf. is that what you’re saying?
and are you with ‘im, amen corn?
paco,
I understand your point of view. But it seems you are using the trademarked character attack from our friend in BH. Are you fluj?
The SF real estate scene looks more and more like the fight between sand castles vs. high tides. The lower laying sand is swept away by the waves while the castle towers keep standing.
The question is, will the towers keep on standing on their own forever?
And as for fluj’s Brentwood condos starting the process, pretty much the same thing starting in SoMa condos now.
Two years later?
The same thing?
If you look at the underlying spreadsheets, the average loan balance is in excess of the jumbo threshold. So, it’s quite clear that Jumbo is not excluded.
And, I’d say it is quite relevant, and here’s why… You said that Alt-A would be the real problem in SF, but the fact is that there aren’t that many Alt-A loans in SF. Similarly, there weren’t that many subprime loans in SF (as compared to the rest of the Bay Area or the rest of California). The rest of the Bay Area has felt the brunt of the subprime collapse, while SF has, to date, been relatively unscathed. Therefore, because SF doesn’t have that many Alt-A loans outstanding, it will by definition not have as many problems with Alt-A as other parts of the Bay Area.
Sure, SF proper may suffer some effects but it will be muted — just as it was for subprime.
fronzzz,
i’m currently going thru the ringer trying to get financing for a five unit and i’m astounded that sf prices are not getting beat up much much more judging from the troubles i’m having.
if lending does not loosen up i predict that prices will REALLY start coming down. BUT, despite what many on here predict i have yet to see the declines i would expect from such a tough lending environment. anyway, the towers in sf were always much more expensive than the low lying areas and i expect that to become even more pronounced.
and no, i’m not fluj, but thanks for asking…
paco,
Good luck for the financing, but do you know you need a real job to buy property today? Prices used to go up 15% no matter what and that was supposed to last forever! If only the bad bad bad media and all these negative people on the message boards could just all shut up so that we could go back to all becoming instant millionaires and not have to work for a living.
Good nabes are holding on, sure. Is this going to last forever? Not so sure.
“Good luck for the financing, but do you know you need a real job to buy property today? Prices used to go up 15% no matter what and that was supposed to last forever! If only the bad bad bad media and all these negative people on the message boards could just all shut up so that we could go back to all becoming instant millionaires and not have to work for a living.”
LOL @ Fronzi talking down to Paco.
I hope you’re learning something, Fronzi. Lucky for you teachers do like the kids who raise their hands a lot. Even on the Internet. It would be nice if they did their homework every now and then but hey, class participation does count.
fluj, are you paco?
fluj and paco, the last 2 people left on the top of PacHeights in 2010 surrounded by a sea of red ink crying “not REAL SF, not REAL SF!”
I am not Paco, no. Apparently we have met once though. I am a realtor with a development background. Paco, I believe, is a contractor with a development background.
Buddy, on a daily basis you show that you are out of your depth on here. Yet you continually try some sort of attempt to condescend. It makes very little sense.
A market that speaks for itself should have no need to be pumped up. I feel the dings into the “everything is fine in Real SF” fantasy are starting to hit home…
Who cares? Nobody is on here talking about unprecedented runups or towers of immunity except you. You’re just trying to goad and you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about anyway.
yo fronzzz,
still waiting to see all those bargains in real sf that you are touting. ha ha chenery chuckle ha ha
I don’t think so, fluj. Month after month we see more data proving housing is becoming more and more affordable in more and more places. You’re holding tight as much as you can and I respect that, ultimately your lifelihood is at stake. You can’t prevent me from sitting on the fence enjoying the show as I do not need anything from this market except cheaper prices and future opportunities. I can live without them, but I’m greedy and would be happy if they came my way. And I’m betting they will.
bargains in real sf
No bargains yet. Prices need to go down a good deal more for that to happen.
“You’re holding tight as much as you can and I respect that, ultimately your lifelihood is at stake. ”
Get out of here.
I’m not trying to convince you of a single thing except to keep your often uninformed opines to yourself.
paco, I forgot,
Where did you see I was quoting Chenery as a bargain? That’s the opposite! repo-ed at 600, and WF tries to unload at 669K. Re-read my comment:
Which means there’s sweat equitity waiting to be unlocked (but not at this current price and in THIS market).
You have the “fluj” syndrome. Some call it ADHD.
fronzzz,
ohh, not in this market. i asked for examples of inventory and reos and you brought up chenery. then added
“This lot is RH2, by the way. Add one floor up, build a garden floor down, get over the tree canopy, and you’ve got potentially a decent enough view.
Which means there’s equitity sweat waiting to be unlocked (but not at this current price and in THIS market).”
so my mistake. despite your coughstupidcough construction plan you do not think this is a good deal/nabe/idea.
so where are all these deals? any deals? i forgot already (adhd again) exactly why ” I feel the dings into the “everything is fine in Real SF” fantasy are starting to hit home…”
please enlighten me.
Fronzi,
The problem with your theory is that lots of people are waiting around to buy so the prices won’t get as low as you want them to. Buyer are purchasing now because they have had enough of a price drop to entice them.
paco,
The dings are the nabes biting the dust one after another coming closer to the “Real SF”. 2 months ago fluj and I had a discussion about GP, BH and the proximity of Bayview. Now BH and GP are not in the “Real SF” club anymore apparently. Maybe someone should send them a letter of apology for being suddenly dropped from the pool of acceptable statistics along with already a good chunk of the city by area (Sunset, Excelsior, Bayview, Richmond, OceanView, Bayshore, SOMA condos, Glen Park, Diamond Heights,…)
Lots that are RH2 get converted from a single floor plan to a 3-level home with garage. I live in a house that will one day go through this process. It’s done when it’s economically feasable. The entry point is not cheap enough and the resale/rental value is not high enough for the sample I gave you. 669K is overpriced for GP and this property. But it will ultimately be done I think.
@Paco
Why be nervous when everything looks OK in the near term. For a real scare take a look at the amount of bad debt banks are holding/or will be holding as level 3 assets. Then look at the amplification of derivatives that are sitting on top of that bad debt. Ever wonder how someone making a $100k can buy a million dollar home for 5-10% down? Answer is Option ARM; well until it recasts in 5 years (2009-2011).
Never mind the man behind the curtain, move along…
your theory is that lots of people are waiting around
I do not have any theory. I just think SF is overpriced.
“Now BH and GP are not in the “Real SF” club anymore apparently.”
The Richmond too, huh? See, you’re really exposing yourself as completely uninformed when you say that. So far in R.E. circles, the Richmond’s performance is actually one of the big surprises of 2008. But whatever. You don’t care.
No, Fronz, today we find you in very rare form. Today you have plumbed the depths of your inner troll. Nice one. I particularly enjoyed your recycling of the tried and true “Realtors need to tell everyone lies in order to maintain their livelihood” zinger. So thanks. I am enjoying the ride from this side too.
Would you like YoY Glen Park or Bernal stats? I’m happy to serve them up, AGAIN. Real quick YoY (1/1/-5/27)Bernal is 663 a foor 2008 versus 620 a foot last year. Glen Park is 733 a foot this year. It was 801 a foot this period last year. I think I know why that is, actually. Bigger houses this year have sold in GP. The average sales price is up 180K.
And Foolio I haven’t forgotten about your Richmond question from the other day. I’ll look at that tomorrow.
I am not sure how much value, if any, the above cash schiller data is worth. Here’s some useful info instead.
From:
http://www.rereport.com
“Both single-family, re-sale homes and condo sales rose in April, as is to be expected this time of year. The sale of single-family, re-sales homes gained 23.1% from March, a 5.2% decline year-over-year. Sales of condos and lofts rose 17.5% month-over-month, but were down 22.1% compared to last April.
The median price for single-family, re-sale homes rose 4.3% from March, and, it was up 2.2% year-over-year. The average price rose 1.1%, and, it was up 5.7% compared to last April.
The median price for condos in San Francisco fell 1.4% to $755,000 from March, but, was up 4.5% year-over-year. The average price for condos gained 0.3% to $917,238, a new record high, for the second month in a row. The average price was up 10.5% year-over-year.
Condo sales gained 17.5% month-over-month, down 22.1% year-over-year.”
fluj, I wasn’t talking to you but to paco. He qualified BH and GP as too distant and not worth talking about.
My comment was about the shrinking comps zones.
Thanks for the numbers. Is this january vs. May 27th? Or is it YoY? Please clarify.
@unearthly,
i agree about the level 3 assets and weapons of financial mass destruction (hat tip warren). i am v v worried and my reasoning is to put money to work buying assets i’m comfortable with rather than keeping it in tbills. aside from a healthy skf hedge i’m at a loss as to where to put my rapidly deteriorating greenbacks. fortunately i found a good building that noone else wanted and was able to get a good deal (appraiser measured it- $268/sq.ft.) in a good nabe. essentially i’m betting i’ll get more value from my RE than my $’s.
as to the other part of your post
“Ever wonder how someone making a $100k can buy a million dollar home for 5-10% down? Answer is Option ARM; well until it recasts in 5 years (2009-2011).”
i’m not too worried about these folks for a few reasons: rates are probably not going up when they recast and if someone is making that $100k they can afford the payments (they probably do have savings) plus many folks bought in “real sf” and their properties increased in value over this time.
and as i’ve said here before, i don’t care what happens in bernal or bayview- i don’t see it affecting the areas i watch.
@anon at 6:26,
thanks for the useful info. data speaks sooo much louder than
what the bears keep quoting.
@ Paco
Rates are not the only issue when a Option ARM loan recasts. The worry is that after a recast minimum payments are no longer accepted (I/O or otherwise) and that P + I gets compressed to 25-27 years. Basically the mortgage payment can jump 2.5x-3x the prior payment minimum. The loan goes from somewhat affordable to unaffordable; on the example I gave a $2900 monthly can become $6200 month after a recast (1% initial rate, 5.5% after recast, 10% down).
Throw in a second mortgage, HELOC, or car payments and you can see how Option ARMs can be deadly in the hands of the uninformed. With the current lending environment it won’t be easy to refinance out of these loans, especially in a flat or depreciating market. Most of these are Prime loans, not Subprime, not Alt-A. Thank Alan Greenspan and the greed of investment bankers to find ways to sell more risky debt.
fronzzz,
“I wasn’t talking to you but to paco. He qualified BH and GP as too distant and not worth talking about.
My comment was about the shrinking comps zones.”
finding some reos in these areas does not surprise me one bit. i was not interested in investing in them even when they were much much less expensive. i may have been wrong to overlook these areas as they appreciated way way more than i think they should have, BUT i was correct in thinking that when the froth subsided these areas would be shown to have few clothes (or other desirable and resilient traits). in other words i have no interest in defending the prices of overbuilt crappy soma lofts but i take exception to the theory that b/c this stuff is going down everything will be dragged with it.
so bh and gp and coco county were not on my list when they went up or down.
et tu, fronzzzz?
@unearthly
i agree. and those who underestimated their future liabilities PLUS threw some HELOC debt on deserve what is coming. same with all those buying what they could not afford.
as for loans or other commitments that people get into who are uninformed, i would refer you to pj barnum’s (i think) quote about the frequency of the birth of fools. and how they are quickly separated from their money(who said that?).
so do you think we need lotsa regulation to keep this from recurring?
@ paco
To answer your last question – I say no, let this play out. I want the bad debt out sooner than later. The biggest worry is that some bigger banks may fail or get bought out for pennies on the dollar ala Bear Stearns; Bear is the first not the last. IMO there will be a larger pricing correction in the real estate market, the question is when and where?
I’d say most people who bought or refi-ed their loan in the 2003-2007 time frame simply looked at the cheapest monthly payment option and not anything else.
Couple of interesting reads:
Herb Greenberg: Straight Talk on the Mortgage Mess from an Insider
Economist: Paradise lost
In Wallstreet the movie, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) said ‘A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place…
excellent links unearthly.
thanks
Hey, how did this conversation get like this? Does it have anything to do with the chart?
I would rather talk about my prediction that when the three tiers meet, that’s the bottom. 😉
If you look carefully, the three tiers have not completely met yet. However, the top tier already stopped the decline.
So, personally, I am eager to see if my prediction becomes reality…. although it seems that I probably missed the mark with the 2nd part of the prediction (the bottom happens late 2009).
You can’t prevent me from sitting on the fence enjoying the show as I do not need anything from this market except cheaper prices and future opportunities
Sitting on the fence? Didn’t you tell us that you sold your investment property in San Francisco, in anticipation of the downturn? Or was that some other guy posting under the moniker of “San FronziScheme”?
But Excelsior is much closer to Noe than Daly City
This is actually not true. At least not if you use the SFARMLS map of Excelsior. Even if you use the more commonly accepted “everything south of 280 and West of McLaren Park” it is still not true.
I think most people would rather live in Daly City than Excelsior.
I always get a kick out of reading these comments after the Case-Shiller comes out.
I live in Boston and watched the same story play out. As the outer areas deteriorated people that could pay 900K moved closer into the city. Eventually that 900K bought a nice place in North End.
Now even those North End places are seeing large declines and the people screaming that they were immune are underwater and hurting.
Looking back on what happened here in Boston and what is happening in San Francisco it is not all that surprising. There will always be people that want to buy and will have an amount they can use to buy. As the market turns downward they will be able to use that purchasing power to walk up the real estate ladder. This continues until the buyers reach the top and then even the nicest places teeter and lose value as well.
I will keep checking back on you guys. Keep up the debates. 🙂
Fronzi,
just because you don’t say “theory” doesn’t mean it’s not a theory.
Fronzi,
just because you don’t say “theory” doesn’t mean it’s not a theory.
Jason G,
Your bemusement bemuses me. Can you explain why the same trend would be happening slower in San Francisco than Boston? You know, if it’s the same and all?
FYI, data from 2007 for year end 2006.
There were significantly less subprime loans taken out by home owners in San Francisco than the national average – 5.5% versus state/national average of 12.0%.
Homeowners in San Francisco borrowed an average of 2.36 times their annual income for their mortgage. This compares to 1.83 for all of the US.
87.4% of home owners in San Francisco that applied for a mortgage in 2006 live in their homes versus owning them as an investment property. This compares to the national average of 89.0%.
“I would rather talk about my prediction that when the three tiers meet, that’s the bottom. 😉
If you look carefully, the three tiers have not completely met yet. However, the top tier already stopped the decline.”
At best this is just a lull before the Alt-A and option reset wave begins in earnest in 2009. I’m still predicting Case-Schiller below 110 by 2011. You have never put forth a mechanism to explain why those numbers converging indicates a bottom. My interpretation is that the divergence started with the rise of sub-prime loans causing outlying area to abnormally appreciate and the convergence now is just a reflection that sub-prime is no longer readily available.
Interesting article in the Economist showing that, per Shiller’s longer-term analysis, the current housing decline is already worse than during the Depression. Can SF really expect to steer clear of this? I think the evidence already overwhelming answers that question in the negative, but I also recognize that reasonable minds may differ.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11465476