Category Archive

Despite the ongoing health and economic crisis precipitated by COVID-19, the SF real estate market made a large recovery from the steep declines in March and April. The SF median house price hit a new monthly high in June ($1,800,000), and high-end houses, in particular, have seen very strong demand – this applies to virtually every market in the Bay …

Supply & demand statistics, median sales price trends, sales and values by city district, the luxury home market, and the ongoing effects of COVID-19 June 2020 Generally speaking, market activity – as measured by the number of listings going into contract – continued to pick up rapidly in May, bouncing back from the steep plunge following the first shelter in …

May 2020 Crisis Update. Market activity begins to tick up after severe shelter-in-place plunge. Median home sales prices are up. Interest rates hit new low. Shelter-in-place caused steep drops in activity across the board in what is typically the busiest selling season of the year. However, though still far below normal levels, activity has been picking up since bottoming out …

Note that there is a time lag – usually 3 to 6+ weeks – between a new listing coming on market, an offer being negotiated and accepted, and when the transaction actually closes sale. This means that almost all of the sales price data we have, as of the first week of April, still reflects the market BEFORE the shelter-in-place …

The first thing to remember is that there is a time lag – usually 3 to 6+ weeks – between a new listing coming on market, an offer being negotiated and accepted, and when the transaction actually closes sale. This means that almost all of the sales price data we have, as of the first week of April, still reflects …

Below is a look at the past 30+ years of San Francisco Bay Area real estate boom and bust cycles. Financial-market cycles have been around for hundreds of years, from the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600’s through today’s speculative frenzy in digital-currencies. While future cycles will vary in their details, the causes, effects and trend lines are often quite …

There is a lot going on in the world right now and we won’t pretend to know how things will turn out or affect the local real estate market over the next few months. In the meantime, this report will look at the most recent data available, though the impact of the wild volatility in the financial markets and the …

It’s important to note that the Bay Area contains many different markets and market segments, sometimes following diverging trends in supply and demand, and home-price appreciation. Most of the materials in this report reflect overall trends for the entire region. When the data is available we’ve charted longer-term trends since they give much greater context to what the state of …

Generally speaking, after years of high appreciation rates, annual 2019 Bay Area median home prices went down a little bit, went up a little bit or basically remained unchanged as compared to 2018. SF hit new quarterly price highs in spring of 2019 (amid all the IPO excitement), but ended up the year at about flat for houses and a …

When the media reports on the “Bay Area median home price,” it’s worth remembering that SF is a relatively small market compared to the big 3 counties. Appreciation in Very Expensive Markets Based on the calculations of an algorithm created to track long-term price changes, this next chart looks at percentage appreciation since 2012 in the most expensive markets of …

Using six-month-rolling figures for monthly median sales prices smooths out the often meaningless monthly fluctuations to illustrate broad, long-term appreciation trends with more clarity. Home Sales Volume by Month A crystal clear illustration of the role of seasonality in the SF real estate market. Starting in November activity begins to plunge towards the mid-winter nadir. Remember that November sales volumes …

Neighborhood House & Condo Prices; Short-Term & Long-Term Appreciation Trends; Population Migration In & Out of the City. After the heat of the spring market, activity typically slows down markedly in July and August. In September, listings start pouring on the market again to fuel the relatively short autumn selling season – in fact, September is typically the single month …