Inventory of listed single-family homes, condos, and TICs in San Francisco increased 5.1% over the past two weeks to 1,551 active listings. Listed inventory levels have increased an average of 0.9% in San Francisco during the same two weeks over the past five years.
Current listed inventory is up 4% on a year-over-year basis, up 17% versus the average of the past five years, and up 64% as compared to an average of 2006 and 2007. On the demand side of the equation, listed sales were up 1.5 percent in February with 276 properties sold as the median sale price fell 7 percent year-over-year for single-family homes, down 13 percent for condos.
The inventory of single-family homes for sale in San Francisco is up 17% on a year-over-year basis to 662 listings while listed condo inventory is down 4% to 889.
The percentage of active listings in San Francisco that have undergone at least one price reduction ticked down two points to 30% as the percentage of active listings that are either already bank owned (67) or seeking a short sale (203) dropped to 17%, down 6% on an absolute basis over the past two weeks.
The standard SocketSite Listed Inventory footnote: Keep in mind that our listed inventory count does not include listings in any stage of contract (even those which are simply contingent) nor does it include listings for multi-family properties (unless the units are individually listed).
∙ San Francisco Listed Housing Inventory Update: March 28, 2011 [SocketSite]
∙ SF Listed Sales Volume Up 1.5% In Feb As Medians Continue To Fall [SocketSite]
This is all just feeling so “new normal” to me. I know that anecdotally there are segments of the market that are “hot hot hot!” (I’ve seen some of those properties myself), but broader indicators still show weakness. It will be interesting to see how the full spring selling season plays out.
Oooh, ooh, everybody look! There’s a black wiggly line in between a bunch of other wiggly lines of different colors. That chart looks like something my 2-year old would draw.
In other equally important news, the Z-estimate of my house went up $12k this month! Whee!
Of course, the fact that the black wiggly line is higher than all the other wiggly lines except 2009 (when the financial world was crashing) is the key take-away. Inventory is up pretty significantly YOY for SFRs and down a bit for condos/TICs. March listed sales were down a bit for SFRs and up a little for condos/TICs. Pendings are also flat YOY, so don’t look for any huge sales up-tick in the next couple of months. Bottom line – market is not terrible but still weak for condos/TICs and weaker for SFRs city-wide, leading to continuing drifting lower prices (except in the fantasy world of zillow, apparently).
It’s possible there are narrow “hot, hot, hot” segments amidst this overall lethargy, but what are they? I’m sure some individual places that are remarkable will always draw lots of demand, but does this translate into anything broader than isolated individual properties?
although I’m not fond of using winter data in this series (and I’ve said so countless times over the years), I do think that inventory and sales data in the spring and summer is of significant value. Much more so than the renderings of Jimmy’s child.
I’m sure he’s being sarcastic, but I often wonder if some people are recurrently “surprised” by economic events precisely because they aren’t interested in data, or are openly hostile to data when it doesn’t confirm their emotional bias?
regardless, I’m quite excited to see the summer inventory/sales numbers especially given the stress in the financial markets due to QE2 and the threat of removal of QE2.
I thank the editor for collating this data for us. the raw data is far more useful than a “zestimate” for many obvious reasons, at least to those of us who aren’t interested in willful ignorance.
the current month’s data seems to jive with what many people are claiming to see in the streets. the local RE market is a lot better than it was during its implosion year and a fair amount worse than it was during its bubble years.
since this data is backward looking, it is not as useful as some other data (like mortgage purchase application data), although it will IMO become more useful as the spring moves on since a strong spring often translates to a strong summer, and weak spring to weak summer.
“the Z-estimate of my house went up $12k this month”
Is that all? I got you beat, the z-estimate of my recent purchase is up 74% ($57,500) from what I paid for it just one month ago! And that doesn’t include any of the value I’ve added by getting rid of the 70’s paneling in the downstairs and the popcorn ceilings or removing dog urine soaked drywall!
In other equally important news, the Z-estimate of my house went up $12k this month!
J(NL)B, I forgot what you bought for. Are you ready for the October surprise (when the $729k jumbo conforming limit gets lowered by over $100k).
EBGuy — I’ll let you know how I feel about the “October surprise” in November. I predict a hot, hot, hot summer of … well, nothing house-related in my case. A trip to Europe, company growing by leaps and bounds… all very exciting but the house just kind of sits there all day. Tracking Zillow is about the most fun you can get out of owning a house.
“Are you ready for the October surprise (when the $729k jumbo conforming limit gets lowered by over $100k).”
Is that for sure not being renewed?
I believe that the limits will drop automatically in October barring legislative action. Regarding the possibility of legislative action before then, who knows!
It looks like rates are about a percentage point higher for such loans.
The recommendation was to cut out super conforming loans altogether, dropping the limit back down to $365K. Ouch!
Lowering the limit could push a number of buyers into a lower market, therefore creating more competition in the 600s-700s.
For sellers in the 800-900s, it would be bad news. The 1M+ might not feel much pinch apart from a partly damaged bottom limit. Someone overpricing at 1M that would find a buyer at 900K in the previous environment will be out of luck as the 800-900K market has turned softer.
The impact on numbers: the median in SF is already in the mid-600s, I don’t think this change would affect the medians. But averages and particular segments, heck yeah. Time would tell if this would propagate across all market.
I’m gonna guess that legislative action will restore the limits to where they are now. This kind of thing amounts to tinkering at the margins where the Federal Government is concerned … Congress is now on to bigger things, like destroying social security and Medicare and cutting taxes for the wealthy … that’s where the real fights are going to be fought this year. Should be interesting to watch the showdown.
Hope the Republicans prevail since my combined 22% state+federal tax burden (2010) is just too onerous to bear. And that lousy AMT got me for $2600 bucks. That’s a lot of wine I’m not going to be able to “invest” in in 2011 …
@JNLB — As tipster noted above, at least some of the Republican plans would go further then passively allowing the temporary super conforming limit of $729k to expire and actively repeal the “permanent” $625k limit.
The bills they introduced a few weeks ago would go even further and completely wind down Fannie/Freddie in 2 years
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/business/economy/30fannie.html
It’s anyone’s guess what Congress will do — no point in appealing to logic. Because they are are at war and the dems and repubs each control one house, my guess is that they won’t agree on anything and the limit will get lowered by default. But this is the kind of thing that could go either way (limits lowered further or higher limits retained) and get slipped into some larger bill with little notice. One interesting point is that the higher limits only apply to a small number of counties, but they happen to include over 60% of the U.S. population.
“The recommendation was to cut out super conforming loans altogether, dropping the limit back down to $365K. Ouch!”
You mean $417K? It would be great if we went to $365K for conforming, but I wouldn’t count on lower than $417K. That $625.5K number is 50% above. 20% down means a housing price of $781,875 for the maximum jumbo conforming loan.
What’s interesting is that there are only 206 counties that have conforming limits above $417K. Of those, apparently 73 would drop to $625.5K on October 1, and the other 133 would be somewhere between $417K and $625.5K.
UPDATE: With respect to listed sales (and medians) in March: San Francisco Listed Sales Volume Falls 7% In March As Medians Drop.
Listed? MLS doesn’t show that. ^ It shows 454 sales in March 2011, and 442 sales in March 2010.
[Editor’s Note: Break down your counts by type (SFH versus Condo/TIC) and District and we’ll correct rereport and repost. Keep in mind the we don’t include multi-family sales nor listings on San Francisco’s MLS for properties outside the city.]
“What’s interesting is that there are only 206 counties that have conforming limits above $417K. Of those, apparently 73 would drop to $625.5K on October 1, and the other 133 would be somewhere between $417K and $625.5K.”
The obvious political calculus here is that even though the Republicans proposed a bill the wind down Frannie over two years, I doubt that this is actually an outcome that they desire. Ending Frannie quickly would probably engender a large hit to the housing market and would presumably cause some political blow back for those who voted for it.
Dropping the limit in someone else’s district however is cost free from a political point of view. Many of the areas with higher limits lean Democratic which makes dropping the limit an attractive option for the Republicans.
I havent’ seen a thoughrough analysis of this though. It seems like some pundit could count up votes in the high limit vs normal districts to get a rough idea of where this stands.
If anyone sees such an analysis it’d be appreciated if they posted a link.