Are renters having trouble with their rent payments?

Interesting statistics published by the National Multifamily Housing Council to gauge what effect the Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders are having on rent payments:

Based on figures gathered nationally by the National Multifamily Housing Council covering in its survey of 11.5 million professionally managed apartment units.

So far only a 4% change from last month and last year.

May may be different.

New Listing Market Watch - yes, the new normal

New listings during the past two weeks are down slightly from the prior two weeks and are less than half compared to a year ago:  134 vs 142 two weeks ago vs  282 a year ago.

This reduction shows most heavily in the condo market where condo listings are only one-third of a year ago (78 vs 165).  Condo listings were down almost 20% compared to the prior two week period (78 vs 94).

Single family homes fared somewhat better.  Compared to a year ago new listings were down just 12% (56 vs 117) and up slightly compared to the prior period (56 vs 48).

Price reductions were down during the past two weeks compared to the prior period (14 vs 22) and compared to the same as a year ago (14 vs 28).  Most of the drop in price reductions happened in the condo sector (7 vs 20 a year ago) and 7 vs 17 compared to the prior period.

It's worth noting that 73 listings came back on the market (BOM): 22 single family homes and 51 condos.  These are a combination of properties which had been placed in a "hold" status on the MLS (temporarily taken off the market) and properties that had been in contract but had failed to close so the property went back to an "active" status in the MLS.

For single family homes more than half (12 of 22) of the BOM listings were previously in contract which were cancelled.  For condos 25% of BOM listings were properties that had been in contract.  75% were listings which had been active but during the past two weeks had been put into "hold" status.

Finally, the number of properties that closed escrow since the first of April through April 19 was 118 (52 single family homes and 66 condos) which is 34% of closings during the same period last year which totaled 345 (140 single family homes and 205 condos).

New Listing Market Watch - the new normal?

In the last two weeks, as expected, new listings were down significantly compared to the prior two week period (142 vs 239) and compared to a year ago (142 vs 314). This affected both condos (94 vs 145 compared to the prior period) and single family homes (48 vs 94).

The total number of active listings at the beginning of April is the lowest it has been since we have kept records.

This graph above is a little difficult to read so let me describe.  The prominent green bars show the total number of active listings at the early part of April for each of the ten years back to 2010.  The faded bars are for each of the other months.

Maybe a little more surprising, the number of price reductions was down compared to the prior period and compared to a year ago.  For single family homes, there were 5 price reductions this period vs 11 in the prior two week period and vs 11 a year ago.  For condos the numbers are 17 this period, 31 in the prior period, and 27 a year ago.

San Francisco Fundamentals - next month will be worse

One of the reports we publish is the "San Francisco Fundamentals" report.  It provides a summary of the previous month's sales and a snapshot of the current inventory of available properties.

Compared to February the number of sales in March was up as was the average price of single family homes.  The average selling price for condos was down compared to February. 

But compared to March 2019 the number of sales was down between 10% (single family homes) and 20% (condos).  Average selling prices were uo 3% (single family homes) and 4% (condos).

However, keep in mind that the vast majority of March 2020 sales were in contract prior to the shelter-in-place order was initiated in San Francisco.

Not surprisingly inventory was down overall (condos and single family homes) compared to February.  And, it was way down compared to a year ago:  122 single family homes compared to 193 in 2019; 236 condos compared to 406.

There are more properties with a "hold" or "cancelled" status than there are "active".

Next month will be worse.

Our Power Broker Rating

RIS media has just come out with their national "Power Broker" ratings based on sales volume.  Our brokerage, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices - Drysdale Properties" is listed as #55 (out of 1,000) !!

We were #11 of California-based brokerages.

Congratulations to our power broker, Gretchen Pearson, and all of our 1,075 agents!