San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

The Goldman Report for July 7, 2009

Note: While Avram Goldman is no longer with Coldwell Banker, he is a friend and associate at Pacific Union with an excellent handle on San Francisco Real Estate:

Across the Great Divide

Although average sales price has been increasing since the beginning of summer, it is once again showing a decreasing trend with the vast majority of sales under the million dollar mark.
The deep divide is reflected in Marin, which is one of the highest priced counties in the Bay Area. In July there were 1210 single family listings—621 under a million of which 38% of them were in escrow, 359 in the one to two million dollar range of which 19% were in escrow, and 230 over two million of which only 7% were in escrow. If you looked at all of the listings over one million, only 14.6% are in escrow or about one in seven listings.

There are many reasons why this could be occurring. Loans over the conforming limits are still more difficult to obtain, as lenders continue to require larger down payments, interest rates continue to be higher than conforming loans, and lender appraisals make for more challenging negotiations. Many sellers on the market are still testing the waters because either lower asking prices would put them under water or they think that their homes are unique and unusual, believing that buyers would be willing to overlook comparable homes that have sold for less. Today’s WSJ article confirms these observations.

Read the entire report here.

posted by SFResidence.com @ 10:35 PM