San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

San Francisco Real Estate Market Update for 8/28 - 9/3/06

Avram Goldman, President and COO of Coldwell Banker, San Francisco Bay Area said in his latest weekly report:

"The buyers are out there. Open houses overall showed impressive activity for the Labor Day weekend. In spite of this activity buyers are still taking their time in making offers. However, buyers do understand value and when they see the well priced and presented home they will move quickly.

"The good news is that 40% of our offices had multiple offers with 25% of the offices having multiple offer percentages of greater than 30%. Price reductions are generating offers, a few are even receiving multiple offers. We are no longer seeing prices on multiple offers going over asking price. In some cases these listings are going under list price.

"Sellers have become more realistic. An expression that is heard when the market changes is ”sellers tend to be 6 months behind the market and buyers are 6 months ahead of the market’. We are now at that point where sellers are now beginning to understand what they need to do the sell their homes. Experience is a good teacher as a seller found out in San Francisco. After 3 weeks on the market the seller received 2 offers. They decided to counter the offers over asking price. Both buyers declined. The listing agent tried to revive the offers, but was unsuccessful. If the seller had initially accepted one of the offers their house would have been in escrow.

"As stated in last week’s report inventories in the majority of counties are beginning to slowly decrease. This is due to increasing number of expired listings and fewer listings coming on the market. Seasonally, as fall approaches we normally experience a second wave of new listings hitting the market. So far we haven’t seen this surge.

"Seasonally we experience an increase in activity as both buyers and sellers return from vacations. Buyers would like to make their moves before the holiday season begins. It is important during this opportunistic period that sellers understand the need to price properly and invest in presenting their homes in the best light possible. That means taking care of any deferred maintenance, staging, and having reports done before going on the market. This will increase their chances of having a successful sale.

"Here are the numbers for the week: 6 offices reported increasing inventories, 18 steady and 5 declining---3 offices showed increasing sales activity, 21 steady and 5 decreasing."

- Avram Goldman

* For an e-mail alert when this report is updated, send a note to info@SFResidence.com with "weekly market report" in the subject line.

posted by SFResidence.com @ 8:26 AM