What’s Going On With Stroller Valley, er um, Noe Valley Prices?
October 19, 2008
Vroom Vrooom
So what’s the deal with Noe Valley? Has it demonstrated resilience in the face of the down market? Or is it cruising for a bruising?
We wanted to find out, so we ran some numbers to give us the scoop. Our analysis consisted of looking at median sales prices in Noe for both single family homes and condos dating back seven years. We really wanted to include the current year in the data, so we capped each year at October 15th. All data comes straight from MLS (we don’t make this stuff up, folks). Here is a look at the chart:
Single Family Home vs. Condo Median Sales Prices in Noe Valley thru October 15 - Click Picture to Zoom In
The median sales price for single family homes in 2007 was $1,383,000 compared to this year’s $1,392,500– essentially a flat-growth year. Condos, on the other hand, have gone down slightly this year from last and are just hanging above ‘04/’05 levels.
Another notable feature of this graph is the lack of a substantial downturn for either property type. We’ve been reading all about values plummeting around the Bay Area and the rest of the Nation, but the tale of San Francisco’s Noe Valley tells of a different fate (at least thus far).
How about those appreciation rates? The three year appreciation rate for single family homes stands at 114%, the five year at 136%, and the seven year at 168%. Not too bad considering the current real estate environment.
And for the condos? Well those rates are a bit more conservative as you might imagine. The condo market is usually a bit more sensitive to market changes than the single family home market, and this is evident in lower appreciation rates. The three year rate is 103%, the five year rate is 107%, and the seven year rate is 135%.
What does the future hold? No one knows. But our thoughts are that unless San Francisco becomes an undesirable place to live overnight (ie; it falls into the ocean), Noe Valley is hit with a barrage of new single family home inventory (yeah, right), and loans become absolutely unattainable (ie; we enter a MAJOR depression), this part of town has demonstrated it can weather the storm.
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I completely agree! In fact, until a couple of months ago, my data shows that the three month moving averages on condos were hitting all-time highs, city-wide. See here: http://rereport.com/sf/monthly/index.html. My theory is that condos are doing reasonably well as a result of a combination of stubbornly high home prices and tightening credit conditions: some folks are giving up on the idea of owning a house and settling for a condo instead.