Thursday, October 8, 2020

Highlights from Monthly and 3rd Quarter Reports

We've just posted our regular collection of monthly reports along with third quarter reports for residential listings and sales in San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma counties.  Also included are our Biweekly New Listing Report for San Francisco and weekly Tri-County report. The full reports can be found at our website:  www.boldsf.com/Statistics

Here are some highlights:

San Francisco

  • Every two weeks for the past four months San Francisco has added more than 500 new listings of single family homes, condos and TICs.  For the two weeks ending October 5 we added 652 new listings.  That compares to 403 during the same period last year.  The bulk of new listings are condos with 425 added in the last two weeks compared to 264 a year ago.
  • Every two week period for the past sixteen weeks we've seen 100+ price reductions posted for condos.  During the two weeks ending October 5 there were 208 price reductions compared to just 73 a year ago.
  • As of October 5 there were 1,401 condos listed for sale.  For September there were 308 condo sales that closed compared to 191 in September of 2019.

  • The conclusion seems to be there are more than the normal number of buyers for condos but they are substantially outnumbered by more and more listings coming on the market.
Marin

  • Inventory remains a problem in Marin county.  In September 240 single family homes closed escrow.  As of October 6 there were only 336 single family homes on the market -- barely a month's supply.
  • For the third quarter this year smaller single family homes (3 bedrooms or less) are selling for premiums above those for the same quarter last year. Premiums for 4 bedroom homes are slightly below last year's level.
  • The number of sales was up in the third quarter of the six configurations of single family homes we track compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Sonoma

  • Inventory is also a problem in Sonoma where 517 single family homes closed escrow in September and, as of October 5, there were 643 on the market.
  • For the six configurations of single family homes we track, all posted sales for the third quarter above those of the third quarter last year with the exception of 4 bedroom, 3 bath homes.
  • Premiums were also up in all of the configurations except the two largest.

Tri County
  • The number of sales of condos and single family homes in all three counties was up in September compared to a year ago with the exception of condos in Sonoma County.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Global Real Estate Bubble Index

The large, global investment bank UBS has put out it's annual Global Real Estate Bubble Index for 2020.  It lists 25 cities around the world and classifies them as Bubble Risk or Overvalued, Fair Valued, or Undervalued.  Of the 25 cities there are five in the US -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston and Chicago.

San Francisco is in the Overvalued group but trending down over the past three years:

Barrons describes the index this way when discussing the seven cities most at risk of a housing investment bubble:  "Faced with high price-to-rent ratios and uncertain rental price growth, investors searching for a buy-to-let home may want to look elsewhere."

Keep in mind this index is focused exclusively on residential real estate as investment.  So if you're not planning on renting your property the index probably isn't especially relevant -- but it is interesting.