With inventory levels in San Francisco having surpassed their recession-era marks last week, a trend which shouldn’t have caught any plugged-in readers by surprise, the number of homes on the market which have undergone at least one official price cut or reduction has ticked up another 15 percent over the past two weeks to over 460.

In fact, 31 percent of all active listings on the MLS have been reduced at least once, which is 13 percentage points higher than at the same time last year, with 27 percent of all listings for single-family homes having been reduced and 32 percent of the listings for condos.

As such, there are now 400 percent more reduced listings on the MLS than there were at the same time last year, over nine times (9x) more than there were in August of 2015, and the most reduced listings, in the absolute, since November of 2011.

And despite all the reductions, the average list price of the homes on the market is still 5 percent higher, on a price per square foot basis, than for the homes which are in contract.

20 thoughts on “400 Percent More Reduced Listings on the MLS in San Francisco”
  1. Wake me up when a decent 1/1 with 600+ sq ft, no camping tents within 5 blocks, condo, in Haight Asbury/Cole/Noe, goes for $650K…

    1. Most homeless encampments in residential neighborhoods move over time, if only to dodge 311 complaints from homeowners, so there’s no practical way to verify the absence of camping tents within 5 blocks of a given home at time of sale.

      If there was, I agree that would be a very interesting set of data to have and correlate with sales prices and neighborhood.

      1. there are plenty of neighborhoods that dont have homeless within 5 blocks. the haight certainly is not one of them and probably will never be

          1. i live in inner richmond, and rarely see homeless. occasionly, one or 2 tents pop up and local residents ask them to leave. im pretty sure this is also the case in most of outer richmond and sunset. we previously lived in the presidio and its the same there.

          2. I lived in Inner Richmond, Lake St., and I can say with 100% certainty that within 5 blocks of my house, I would come across or see homeless every day.

          3. i live 1 block off lake and definitely dont see everyday within 5 blocks (maybe 1x every 2 weeks). maybe you lived close to park presidio.

  2. If one were to try timing the market I am guessing this fall will be ideal to jump in and buy assuming inventory grows again towards Thanksgiving. Smart money would lock in 30 year fixed rates with full blown pre-approval. FED signaled today they aren’t buying long end of curve so I await all of the 10-30y bond holders getting smoked, heck I might try an inverse treasury ETF myself…

  3. Meanwhile i got a Redfin alert that a 2 BR / BA in Sunset / Parkside went for 1.5 M when it was listed for 1.2M. I mean, it was nice but it wasn’t particularly large at 1600 square feet.

    1. It’s hard to believe that a unit that’s listed at $750 per square foot, in an area where the actual sale price has been running closer to $975 per square foot, would sell for an “over asking,” but below median, price of $940 per foot.

      1. Well, I guess I thought the point of this article was that prices are starting to drop – so using the peak square footage pricing seems disingenuous. But maybe I’m misunderstanding something

        1. Said “something” could be that the average sale price per square foot has actually slipped over the past six months having previously peaked. Or simply that selling for significantly “over asking” when listed for 20 percent under the current median (price per square foot) speaks to pricing versus the strength of the market as implied.

    2. Every time the editor points out how the Real Estate industry misuses “over asking” stats someone starts whining that “Nobody uses over asking” or “Nobody believes over asking”. Then literally every time an apples to apples sale shows the market slowing someone pops up with “But here’s this property that sold for way over asking”.

      Face.Palm.

  4. I’d love to see a breakdown by district / neighborhood here. I’m not seeing tangible decreases in sale price per square foot here in the NOPA / Haight / Alamo Square area.

    1. Well according to spencer, “Uber going public will unleash enough multi-millionaires to soak up the whole supply for 18 months alone.”

      Lets see… Uber lockup expired Nov 6, 2019. So until May 6, 2021 there will be no inventory at all for these Airbnb techies to buy. Then after that will come Lyft and Juul and then all those years of pent up regular demand. Gosh, there won’t be any inventory at all in SF until 2024!

      Funny too how all those real estate boosters that were IPO experts made a smooth pivot to being expert virologists and economists. Telling us with confidence that this whole global pandemic will blow over shortly. Who knew realtors were so multi-talented!

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