San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

San Francisco Real Estate Market Update for 10/30 - 11/5/06

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

"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

* 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 @ 4:08 AM