"Just like our President says, “Nothing like a good ole’
fashion market”. And that is exactly what it is with a few exceptions.
"Inventories continue to decrease area wide. In fact, we had more
offices showing decrease than any other category. In some areas on the
Peninsula and San Francisco inventories are at a point where certain
neighborhoods are fetching frequent multiple offers. One property in
San Francisco garnered 8 offers---another in Hillsborough had 3 offers.
Three out of our four offices in SF had 30%-50% multiple offer transactions.
Our San Mateo office and our Menlo Park-El Camino office had 35% and
40% multiple offer sales respectively. With that said, most markets
are seeing very few multiple offers.
"Uniformly our offices reported brisk open house activity. In
Burlingame one open house had 84 buyers through. The buyers are certainly
circling. When the sellers hit the right price they bite. A good example
is a listing from our Carmel office that received 5 offers on the seller’s
fourth reduction. When we have multiple offers most are at listing,
a little below or above list price. Most of SF and San Mateo counties
are the hot spots in Bay Area real estate. We saw a slight pick up in
parts of Marin and Sonoma counties. Santa Clara county also is seeing
a bit of a rise. In the East Bay we are still experiencing sluggishness.
"Negotiation is the key. How will I know. We listed our home at
an attractive list price and went into escrow within the first week
on the market. The buyers came back after inspections with a proposal.
I think you all know what that means. Buyers today expect to negotiate
and they expect the sellers to be reasonable. Needless to say we were.
We received a fair price for our home and the buyers feel they did well
too. I am not saying this was easy, this after numerous inspection contingency
extensions. My word to sellers is have patience. Just because you are
a real estate broker it doesn’t make it any easier.
"There definitely is a change in the market although buyers are
still cautious they are ready to buy. We are seeing consistent buyer
activity. It looks like the next few weeks should be active. Buyers
want to take advantage of the lowered interest rates. The stock market
has fed confidence. This is reflected in a number of upper end sales
the past week one at $11mil and one at $12 mil. The well-heeled are
once again parking their dollars in real estate.
"Here are the numbers for the week of Oct.30th-Nov. 5th: 5 offices
reported increasing listing inventory, 12 steady and 13 decreasing---sales
activity showed 5 offices increasing, 16 steady and 9 decreasing."
Avram Goldman
President and COO
Coldwell Banker SF/Bay Area
