Monday, September 25, 2017

Peak new listings for the fall year?

For the most part the "new listing" part of the market continues to follow the track set last year.  The number of new listings in the last two weeks is the largest this year and comparable to the same period last year (403 vs 391).


Compared to the previous two week period new listings are up slightly (162 vs 155 single family homes and 241 vs 228 condos).

The percentage of new listings going into contract within the same two week period is up slightly compared to the previous two weeks (8.6% vs 6.5% of single family home new listings and 7.5% vs 6.1% of condo new listings) suggesting that even with a peak of new listings there is still competitive demand.


The number of price reductions is up slightly compared to the previous two week period (17 vs 11 for single family homes and 34 vs 31 for condos).  However, compared to the same period last year the number of price reductions is down (17 vs 21 for single family homes and 34 vs 54 for condos).


If this last year's experience is predictive of the remainder of 2017 the last two weeks will be the peak of new listings for the year with each following two week period showing fewer and fewer new listings until after the first of the new year.


Christmas is only three months away!

Monday, September 11, 2017

Jump in new listings - as predicted

Right on time, as predicted, new listings have increased dramatically in the last two weeks.  Total new listings were 383 compared to 201 in the prior two week period.  For the same period a year ago new listings were 368.  The increase was evenly split between single family homes (155 vs 79 in the prior period) and condos (228 vs 122).


As can be seen from this graphic, this jump in new listings happens every year post Labor Day.


The percentage of new listings going into contract remained unchanged for single family homes compared to the prior period (6.5% vs 6.3%) but is up significantly compared to a year ago (6.5% vs 1.3%).  For condos 6.1% of new listings went into contract compared to 4.1% for the prior period and 3.9% a year ago.


The number of price reductions increased for single family homes to 11 compared to 5 in the prior period and 10 a year ago.  For condos, there were 31 price reductions compared to 21 for the prior period and 35 a year ago.


Friday, September 8, 2017

Are Buyers Finally Telling Sellers "No" to High Asking Prices?

At the beginning of each month we post a list of sales in the surrounding neighborhoods of our two offices (1715 Polk St. and 2324 Market St.) for the previous month.

August is traditionally a slow month for residential sales in San Francisco but something interesting seems to be happening in the Nob Hill, Russian Hill and Civic Center/Van Ness neighborhoods -- the number and percentage of sales closing at under asking prices is going up.

For August 2017 there were 17 residential sales in the three neighborhoods.  6 of those sales closed at below asking price -- 35%.  For August last year the numbers were 17 sales, 3 below asking -- 18%.

For the previous month (July 2017), there were 22 sales, 2 under asking -- 9%.











Admittedly the numbers are small and may not be indicative of a trend but we'll keep watching.

In the neighborhoods surrounding our Market St. office, the trend seems to be in the opposite direction.  This August only 6% of sales were under asking.  A year ago it was 19%.