SFResidence is part of the TRI Coldwell Banker office at 1699 Van Ness in San Francisco which is one of the premier offices in the City and has the market share numbers to prove it. We have some of the top agents selling real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, our office posts some impressive numbers.

But not this week! There’s a reason they call it “Summertime Blues”. Agents and clients take this time to go on vacation to get ready for the usualy busy fall market. Strange as it may sound, our warmer weather starts when summer is over! Right now, San Francisco is socked in with fog and has been for the last week or so. As the weather cools, so has the market. Sales have slowed, but are poised to come back in the fall.

Here are the numbers posted this week: 7/30/08:

• 4 new listings (average price $1,509,750 – low $525,000, high $2,800,000)
• 4 ratified sales (pending) (average price $1,132,000 – low $860,000, high $1,398,000)
• 6 closed sales (sold) (average price $1,444,167 – low $975,000, high $3,150,000)

- Janis Stone

Foster Weeks publishes a weekly mortgage report which is updated every Monday morning. How is this affecting the San Francisco real estate market? Read our weekly and monthly market reports. Here’s what Mr. Weeks says about last week’s activity:

…bouncing back is exactly what Bonds and home loan rates tried to do last week after being pushed to their worst levels of the year.

Bonds and home loan rates managed to hold fairly steady in the first half of the week, despite comments from Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who said “inflation is too high.” Remember signs of inflation typically cause Bonds and home loan rates to worsen, but Plosser also stated that the Fed must “back up their words with action” and hike their benchmark Fed Funds rate. Since a hike by the Fed could lessen inflation…and as a result, cause Bonds and home loan rates to improve…Plosser’s inflation comments didn’t have as much of an impact on the markets as they could have otherwise.

On Thursday, Bonds managed their biggest rebound of the week after several negative economic reports, including a much higher than expected Initial Jobless Claims report and a lower than expected Existing Home Sales report for June, caused money to flow out of Stocks and into Bonds. However, there was good economic news on Friday as New Home Sales for June and Orders for Durable Goods were far better than expected and the Consumer Sentiment Index shocked the markets with a very robust reading. And good economic news about the economy is bad news for Bonds, which caused money to flow right back out of Bonds into Stocks, keeping Bonds and home loan rates from bouncing back any further.

After all the dramatic ups and downs of the week, Bonds and home loan rates ended the week slightly improved.

Read the entire report here.

- Foster Weeks

SFResidence is part of the TRI Coldwell Banker office at 1699 Van Ness in San Francisco which is one of the premier offices in the City and has the market share numbers to prove it. We have some of the top agents selling real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, our office posts some impressive numbers.

Here are the numbers posted this week: 7/23/08:

• 5 new listings (average price $1,249,800 – low $875,000, high $1,500,000 - 1 TBD)
• 8 ratified sales (pending) (average price $2,807,750 – low $473,000, high $8,750,000 – 1 confidential)
• 10 closed sales (sold) (average price $1,296,100 – low $378,000, high $3,495,000, 1 confidential)
• 1 reduced ($1,540,000)

- Mick Orton

Note: While Avram Goldman is no longer with Coldwell Banker, he is still a friend and associate at Pacific Union with an excellent handle on San Francisco Real Estate:

Just those lazy hazy days of summer. While the stock market is gyrating up and down. The housing market is doing the lazy river cruise—-summer vacations, weddings and bar-b-ques.  It has slowed some since June, but not appreciably. At our current pace, July could be the fourth best month since last July. 

We have seen the volume of multiple offers slow. Only 14% of our total transactions had more than one offer.  The most number of offers peaked at four and in some cases the winning offer was under full listing price.  

Open homes, particularly in San Francisco and parts of the East Bay (Berkeley, Piedmont and parts of Oakland) are still attracting good-sized crowds. A Berkeley listing priced at $800K had a 140 buyers through its open house. A few other notable open homes were a Piedmont Ave. (Oakland) listing priced at $635K had 110 visitors; two Crocker Highlands (Oakland) homes one listed at $975K and the other at $1.195mil attracted 80 and 55 groups respectively; a Noe Valley (SF) home listed at $1.298mil. had 120 buyers and a Bernal Hts. (SF) home priced at $749K had 55 visitors. Buyers are very active in these markets. Homes that have been on the market for sometime are seeing limited traffic, except when there is a significant price reduction. The majority of open homes are attracting between 10-20 buyers. Overall positive for a summer market.

Well priced and eye-catching listings are attracting the most attention. A home in Yountville priced just under $ 1 mil. sold in 3 days. These well priced and presented listings sell quickly in spite of all the headlines.  Sellers who garner offers soon after listing should heed the old saying “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. One seller in the Montclair area of Oakland received an offer during the first week on the market at 1% below asking price. They declined it thinking other offers would follow. Not so in this case. The buyer has gone away and the home has now been on the market for six weeks.

When will the market rebound? That is the million dollar question.  A recent article in CNNMoney.com by Amanda Gengler explored this topic. Amanda asked a number of experts as to what are the signs of a rebounding market.

To quote a recent article from CNN Money, the indicators were:  1) positive job growth 2) a shrinking housing stock  3) shrinking number of days on the market 4) prices falling at a slower pace 4) a shrinking ratio of housing prices to rents 5) a rising housing affordability index (an increasing number of buyers that can afford to buy a home).  At this point our market has 3 of the 5 mentioned—our housing stock has declined significantly since the beginning of the year—the affordability index has been increasing since the end of last year—and finally the pace of falling home prices has been diminishing.  When the other two factors kick in we will be headed for the rebound that Amanda discusses. One final note, it was pointed out that real estate is a local game. According to the National Assn. of Realtors median prices for existing single family homes was actually higher than a year ago in a third of the country’s metro areas. The same variations exist here in our own market. One size does not fit all.

- Avram

Foster Weeks publishes a weekly mortgage report which is updated every Monday morning. How is this affecting the San Francisco real estate market? Read our weekly and monthly market reports. Here’s what Mr. Weeks says about last week’s activity:

“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING, DIVING INTO THE COOL CRISP WATER.” Olympic Gold Medalist Dawn Fraser. Diving may be a beautiful sport at the Olympics, but it’s not a beautiful thing to watch in the Bond market. And that’s exactly what happened last week, as Bonds dove to their worst levels so far this year.

So what caused this belly flop to occur? Once again, inflation was the big culprit. While Bonds and home loan rates did begin the week in rally mode after the Federal Reserve announced that it authorized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to borrow directly from the Central Bank if they need additional capital, this confidence boost in the markets was short lived on the heels of important inflation reports.

On Tuesday, the Producer Price Index (PPI) report, which measures prices of goods at the wholesale level, revealed that the year-over-year PPI soared in June, marking the highest year-over-year rate since 1981. Also on Tuesday, the Retail Sales report, which measures the total receipts of retail stores, showed that retail sales increased much less than forecast. This may mean that the boost in sales received from the tax rebates may already be fading as consumers are focusing on paying for essentials…something that Wednesday’s news seemed to confirm.

What was Wednesday’s news? The important Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which measures prices paid by consumers like us. It showed that prices overall are up 5% from a year ago, the biggest year-over-year rise since 1991. This probably comes as no surprise as you look at your own monthly expenses, particularly the amount you’re likely spending these days on groceries and at the gas pump.

Bond prices and home loan rates continued to worsen through the week as no other news or reports could help them shift course. With inflation and tough overhead technical resistance proving to be strong competitors against any improvement, home loan rates generally ended the week around .375 percent worse than where they began.

Read the entire report here.

- Foster Weeks

SFResidence is part of the TRI Coldwell Banker office at 1699 Van Ness in San Francisco which is one of the premier offices in the City and has the market share numbers to prove it. We have some of the top agents selling real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, our office posts some impressive numbers.

The summer market is here. Things are leveling off and will probably remain slow until school starts.

Here are the numbers posted this week: 7/16/08:

• 7 new listings (average price $1,784,571 – low $749,000, high $3,995,000)
• 8 ratified sales (pending) (average price $1,856,875 – low $775,000, high $3,200,000)
• 8 closed sales (sold) (average price $1,548,563 – low $608,500, high $2,950,000)
• 1 reduced ($1,195,000)

- Mick Orton

Note: While Avram Goldman is no longer with Coldwell Banker, he is still a friend and associate at Pacific Union with an excellent handle on San Francisco Real Estate:

As expected the July 4th week was a bit slower.  I am surprised it didn’t come to a screeching halt given all the cheery news from the stock market and the cloud over the financial markets. However buyers still enjoyed going to open homes. Believe it or not a 2 bedroom 1 bath home in Piedmont listed for $875,000 attracted over 200 people. In spite of the holiday weekend many open homes had good traffic. The number of buyers averaged 8-30 groups, with most in double digits.

Multiple offers slowed, but still 20% of our transactions were involved in multiples. All of these coming from the San Francisco and East Bay markets. The majority of multiple offer transactions went over full asking price. The bulk of sales fell under the million dollar price range. This follows the trend in the first half of the year.

There is a great deal of uncertainty in the secondary market which is creating a volatile environment for mortgages. Hopefully with the Treasury now standing behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac some stability will return to the markets. The good news for me is that there are a good number of buyers out there with steel in their veins. I am sensing that those in the housing market today, whether buying to live in a home or investors, are feeling that buying property is making better economic sense now than the stock market. I think this is the only reason that the housing market still has a pulse. 

I think investors are coming back in the market as home prices have dropped and the rental market has become tighter. Rents have been increasing as the demand for available rental housing has increased.  Also with dropping prices housing affordability has increased greatly in spite of rising interest rates.

What the market needs now is a spot of “What if”.  The media keeps focusing on the negative—high oil prices—falling stock prices—increasing interest rates—failing banks—the litany goes on.  What this does is creates a perception that we are “going to hell in a hand basket”.  Yes, the economy is not in good shape, but it is also not atrocious.  We still have 94% of the working population employed. Consumer spending is still at reasonable levels. Plus you had to wait three hours to purchase a new I-Phone. 

O.K.—let’s play the “What if “game. What if consumers thought the bottom of the real estate market was right now. What if consumers felt that the worst of the banking fiasco was behind us.  What if the public realized that things will not be robust, but will bump along through 2009 with the economy picking up steam at the end of 2009.  What kind of impact would that have on the economy?

I think the headlines and the pundits have a great deal of influence on how we think—whether it is real or not.  It is rocky out there, but not fatal. I remember in past stressful economic times it was difficult to remain level headed, but that is exactly what is needed now.  We are constantly sorting for the negative. How about let’s look at a few of the positives. Interest rates are still at historic lows, the vast majority of people are employed. We will need to be more conscience of our spending habits, but it is not the end of the world. We have far too many voices saying “the sky is falling”.  The sky is not falling , we are just going through some storms. One of my manager’s said it best with a quote from Maya Angelou “I’ve learned that no matter what happens or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow”.  Let’s focus on the “What if”.

 - Avram

Foster Weeks publishes a weekly mortgage report which is updated every Monday morning. How is this affecting the San Francisco real estate market? Read our weekly and monthly market reports. Here’s what Mr. Weeks says about last week’s activity:

…while the summer’s fireworks started in full force on the July 4th holiday, they continued daily last week in the financial markets as Bonds and home loan rates ignited and began the week by improving sharply. This early-week rally was sparked by a speech made by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said that the Fed may continue to provide emergency loans to investment banks to help them overcome credit problems. This led to improvement in the Bond market because the markets saw this as a sign that the Fed is willing to take action to maintain stability and counter any turbulence or explosions that may occur.

And speaking of explosions, some explosions in the Middle East helped douse the rallying flames mid-week after Iran test fired nine medium- to long-range missiles, one of which has the range to reach Israel. The instability of that situation…and new testimony by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke before the House Financial Services Committee regarding ways Congress can overhaul the financial regulatory system to prevent future crises (the first hearing of its kind)…caused the improvements in the market to fizzle as Traders watched and waited for the finale these events would cause.

As it turned out, last week’s finale was a bit of an implosion. Despite Paulson’s encouraging words about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bonds and home loan rates worsened after reports on Friday that the government is considering a plan to take control of both companies if financial problems threaten their collapse. Stock prices of Fannie and Freddie would essentially become worthless if this happens, and Stocks and Bonds both reacted poorly to this news as investor confidence plunged.

Also, another record high for oil (remember higher oil prices means higher inflation, which is the arch enemy of Bonds and home loan rates) added to the implosion and worsening of Bonds and home loan rates on Friday. However, when all the smoke cleared, Bonds and home loan rates still managed to end the week slightly better than where they began.

Read the entire report here.

- Foster Weeks

Recently we posted our opposition to AB 2678 (proposed by Nunez) to make energy inspections at time of sale on properties mandatory. Here was Jared Huffman’s response to our e-mail campaign:

Thank you for contacting my office to express your opposition to AB 2678 (Núñez) regarding energy audits upon time of sale in real estate transactions. I agree with you that this requirement is problematic and could have a negative impact on the real estate market. Energy audits need to occur in a comprehensive manner, not just at the time of sale, and should include incentives for energy conservation and use of renewable energy sources.

For these reasons I did not support the bill when it before me for a vote in the State Assembly.  AB 2678, however, was approved by the Assembly and is currently in the Senate Committee on Appropriations. I will keep your thoughts in mind should this bill come before me for a vote of concurrence in the Assembly.

Thank you for alerting me to your concerns and please continue to share you thoughts and ideas with me in the future through my Marin County District Office staff.

Jared Huffman
Assemblymember, District 6

SFResidence is part of the TRI Coldwell Banker office at 1699 Van Ness in San Francisco which is one of the premier offices in the City and has the market share numbers to prove it. We have some of the top agents selling real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, our office posts some impressive numbers.

Now that summer is here, so are the new listings. For the first time in a long time, we have 15 new listings averaging over $1.5M. Although ratified deals reported are only 4 this week, we were told that actually there were over 14 deals made that didn’t make the sheet.

Here are the numbers posted this week: 7/9/08:

• 12 new listings (average price $1,523,000 – low $499,000, high $4,900,000)
• 4 ratified sales (pending) (average price $772,000 – low $555,000, high $1,199,000)
• 7 closed sales (sold) (average price $1,850,143 – low $559,000, high $7,000,000, 1 confidential)
• 1 reduced ($600,000)

- Mick Orton