Having already jumped by 25 percent over the two weeks prior, the net number of homes on the market in San Francisco (i.e., inventory) has since ticked up another 4 percent to 1,470. As such, there are now over 20 percent more homes on the market in San Francisco than there were at the same time last year, 45 percent more homes on the market than prior to the pandemic, and over 120 percent more homes on the market than there were in September of 2015. And save for when the market was frozen in 2020, listed inventory has effectively ticked up to an 11-year high in San Francisco.
At the same time, pending sales remain down over 40 percent versus the same time last year in San Francisco and price reductions are on the rise.
I’m beginning smell the first signs of smoke and desperation. Could it be from an approaching fire sale? With 30 yr fixed interest rates having reached 6.7% and the record number of homes hitting the market I get the sense that something is about to break.
Maybe it’s just me.
I’m also wondering if potential sellers will decide to rent and wait it out (3-5, more yrs?) rather than sell, and if that will flood the rental market. Maybe those numbers are too small to matter.
The type of lateral market movement you refer to only ever tends to be cited as a justification for higher prices, but I rarely if ever see it used to indicate lower prices.
So, we’ll hear faux equilibrium hooey like, “rents are up, because fewer people are buying homes,” or “home prices are up, because fewer people are renting,” but you never hear, “rents are down, because more people are buying,” or “home prices are down, because more people renting.”
It’s almost as if some other mysterious* factors influence the price of shelter..
*mysterious to us only because the neo-classical marginalists usurped the classical political economists who focused on land, rent, and value.
The average 30yr fixed hit 7.08% today. I sense that the smoke from the fire sales (price reductions) will soon start rolling over San Francisco like the summer fog drifting down from Twin Peaks.
Few will be getting 30 year fixed mortgages now.
90 percent of all mortgage applications were for fixed-rate products last week, representing the vast majority of applications and dollar volume of the loans.
Where? I responded to a local take, clearly.