San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

San Francisco Real Estate Market Update for the week ending August 8, 2009

Last week we had great housing news with the announcement that May home prices posted their first monthly increase since the summer of 2006 (based on the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Schiller 20-city index).

We also learned that sales of newly built and existing homes rose in June for the third consecutive month. New home construction, though still weak, is the best it has been since the fall.

This week the good news continued. As announced by the Mortgage Bankers Association, Mortgage loan application volume increased 4.4 percent compared to the previous week. On an adjusted basis, the Index increased 4.1 percent compared with the previous week and 18 percent compared with the same week one year earlier. In addition, the Refinance Index increased 7.2 percent from the previous week. The Index has climbed about 35 percent above its recent low at the end of June. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.9 percent from one week earlier.

Also interesting to note is this week’s release of the National Association of Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index revealed an increase of 3.6% during the month. That was 6.7% higher than June 2008. It was the fifth straight month of increases, the first time that has happened since July 2003. The jump was much higher than expected with a consensus of industry experts put together by Briefing.com forecasting an increase of just 0.7%.

NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun had this to say, “Historically low mortgage interest rates, affordable home prices and large selection are encouraging buyers who’ve been on the sidelines.” It seems all of these incentives, much like the Cash for Clunkers program in the auto industry, is finally pushing people off of the fence.

Read the entire article here.

posted by SFResidence.com @ 3:45 PM