No April fooling around in the Bay Area real estate market for the
week. Serious buyers are making serious offers. Inventory continues
to trickle in to San Francisco and the Peninsula, but not fast enough
for eager buyers. Most areas of the East and North Bay markets,
however, remain steady, but without the traditionally expected deluge
of spring listings.
Of the more than 550 homes held open, most were well attended - especially
in the City and on the Peninsula – and multiple offers among the
well-priced offerings and desirable homes continue to be the norm in
all areas. In San Francisco, a home in Noe Valley listed at $925,000
received 14 offers. Another in Inner Sunset district had 20 offers and
sold for substantially over the asking price.
The mid-high end market saw another week of increased activity in all
areas with Novato, Oakland, San Francisco, Menlo Park and Palo Alto
all noting that pre-emptive and multiple offers are the rule of thumb
on virtually all listings in the $1.5- 3 million range.
Listing inventory increased for 10 offices, remained steady for 14
offices and declined in 5. Sales activity saw a little up-tick from
the previous weeks with an increase reported by 10 offices, steady reported
by 14 offices and a decline in 5 offices. Over 240 offers were ratified,
and nearly 100 multiple offers were reported.
A note of interest comes from Redwood City, and also discussed recently
in Menlo Park, where it seems that open house attendees are relying
more on Internet sources than on print media to locate homes to tour.
Hopefully, it’s an infectious trend as our Coldwell Banker Internet
sites and relationships with innovative technology companies continue
to provide information that is more accurate and up-to-date than anything
found in the newspapers.
Historically we are experiencing our strongest listing month of the
year in April. The amount of new property listings taken in April and
May will shape the sales activity we can expect for the summer of 2007.
Sellers need to seize this incredible opportunity in today's market
with pent-up Buyer demand and very low interest rates.
Rick Turley
President
Coldwell Banker SF/Peninsula
