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.

Oops! Our prediction was wrong. Looks like numbers are way up over last week.

Here are the numbers posted this week: 8/6/08:

• 9 new listings (average price $2,091,000 – low $299,000, high $5,675,000, 1 TBD)
• 16 ratified sales (pending) (average price $1,905,625 – low $555,000, high $5,250,000)
• 8 closed sales (sold) (average price $1,788,063 – low $436,500, high $6,000,000)

- Mick Orton

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:

…Bonds and home loan rates finally managed to make some progress in the right direction last week, with home loan rates improving by .125% from where they began.

The biggest newsmaker occurred when President Bush signed into law HR 3221, the “Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008,” which is a sweeping $300 Billion rescue plan to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure, and to boost confidence in the sluggish housing market. This bill is several hundred pages long, and there have already been hundreds of articles, summaries, and analyses of the bill from the media, many with conflicting and inconsistent data. Rest assured I am deciphering how this law may impact or benefit you, and in the meantime, read the article below for a few notable items from the legislation.

Now remember, negative economic news typically causes money to flow out of Stocks and into Bonds, and several items had that very effect last week, which helped Bonds and home loan rates progress toward improvement. Weak economic data out of Europe, sour comments from Fed President Gary Stern stating that “headwinds to the economy haven’t diminished and are possibly getting worse, setting the stage for a lengthy period of weakness like that seen in the early 1990s”, and a worse than expected Gross Domestic Product Report – which is the broadest measure of activity in our economy – all worked to give Bonds a boost.

But there was some positive economic news…like lower oil prices and a better than expected Consumer Confidence Report, which helped money flow back into Stocks from Bonds. That stopped Bonds and home loan rates from making any bigger improvements. In addition, while Friday’s Jobs Report was better than the expected loss of 75,000 jobs, it still showed that 51,000 jobs were lost in July and that the unemployment rate sits at its highest level in four years. As a result of these negative details, the better than expected Jobs Report didn’t cause Bonds and home loan rates to worsen as much as they could have…

Read the entire report here.

- Foster Weeks

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:

Am I dreaming? Can this be real? I woke up last Sunday morning and perused the SF Chronicle.  To my surprise, not one screaming headline about the housing market in the tank, the economy going down in a blaze or the dollar dropping below the Albanian lek. There was, however, one article on page 6 on the new Housing Bill that is going to the President.  This is the first time in recent memory that we are back to reading about such things as the growing private firefighter business, arrests of tech whizzes or prisons (see Sunday’s paper).  Enough said.

Congress actually did something this week, they actually were able to get the Housing Bill to the President for signature. It has now become law with the President’s signature.  The most significant part of this bill is the government backing of Freddie and Fannie. This action should allow both companies to be able to continue to raise capital with access to the Fed credit line and has given investors a level of confidence that neither of these companies will go under due to their bad loan portfolio.  At this point, it is difficult to determine if this potential bailout will cost taxpayers. What it does do, is allow for continued liquidity for loans in the conforming loan category.  It is called steadying the ship.  However obtaining a loan in today’s environment can be challenging at times, even for those with outstanding credit histories and incomes that can more than cover their mortgage expense. And so it is, we now need the patience of Job to get the job done.

The bill provides banks with the option of having borrowers who have fallen behind refinance FHA or proceed to foreclosure.  This comes however with cost. The government is charging a large fee for banks to take this alternative option.This is voluntary on the banks part. It is a way for lenders to recoup a good portion of the loan principle and avoid perhaps deeper losses if they end up owning the homes and gives the homeowners a chance to avoid foreclosure and the loss of their home.  It is still unknown how popular this program will be. The intent is to prevent more homes from hitting the market and make it possible for families to keep their homes.

One of the little published facts in this bill has been that Congress has finally fixed FIRPTA. We, as realtors, will not have to provide the FIRPTA social security numbers to the buyers. It will be directly handled by the escrow companies. C.A.R should be sending out something soon on the new changes.

The local real estate market keeps plodding along. Given our company’s current pace, July open transactions could be our 3rd or 4th best month since last July. What we have observed is that average sales price is dipping.  As noted in previous reports the greatest growth in units this year over last has been in the under $500,000 price range.

I think there are several reasons: 1) Values among the lower price ranges have been most impacted over the last two years, which has increased the number of buyers who can now afford to buy a home. The values are such that both owner-occupied buyers and investors see an opportunity.  2) Those properties in foreclosure and short sales are now selling as banks want them off their books—last year many of these properties just sat on the market, bloating inventories. 3) Money is more readily available in the conforming loan categories and the loan limit on conforming loans has been raised.  4) Fewer listings in the higher price ranges are coming onto the market.  Those selling in those price ranges tend to have more flexibility when they choose to enter the market. Their motivation is more discretionary.

Open house activity continues to be strong for summertime.  I feel that this reflects the building buyer demand. However, buyers are still cautious and feel in the driver’s seat. We are still experiencing double digit visits and, in some cases over the 100 buyer mark as seen at a Crocker Highlands listing in Oakland priced at just below a million garnered 6 offers.  A TIC listing in Noe Valley (SF) had 140 groups through the 3 units that were available.

We are still seeing a smaller number of multiple offers, although they still represent close to 20% of our transactions. Most are concentrated in San Francisco and parts of the East Bay. The bulk of these transactions are occurring under the million dollar price range.

I believe we will continue to see good activity in the lower price ranges through the summer. If historical trends continue, there should be a rise in activity during the Fall.

- Avram