Archive for the ‘Macro-Level Info’ Category
March 21, 2010
Current observations of the San Francisco residential real estate market (written on 3/21/2010):
1) Following the market crash of late ’08, confidence slowly began trickling back into the marketplace beginning in April 2009. Sales picked up through the summer and carried strong through the end of the year.
2) Many experts have called the “bottom”, but our view is that “bottom” takes place at different times for different price brackets. The low end of the market tends to feel the pain and hit bottom first, while the higher end of the market hangs on a little bit longer. Commercial lags everything, and may not hit bottom for a year or two.
3) The sentiment in today’s market is much better than around this time last year. Many new sales and pendings have led to the lowest MSI (months supply of inventory) on record in over two years. See the chart below:
Months Supply of Inventory (MSI) - Local vs National - click to enlarge
4) Current inventory levels are 17% Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Glen Park, Macro-Level Info, Market Check Up, Neighborhood Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged 1167 bosworth, months supply of inventory, msi, san francisco, san francisco real estate | 1 Comment »
January 6, 2010
Why the double asterisk? We’ll get to that in a moment.
Sales Volume Comparison (click to enlarge)
Observations:
- Single family home sales have been on the decline since 2003 and appear to have bottomed (or at least flattened) in ’08 & ’09.
- Condo sales volume tends to be more sensitive to market changes (hence the bumpier road) and continued to decline in ’09. Declines have been consistent since 2004.
- TIC sales volume has steadily increased over time, with a big push around 2004/2005, as Fractional Lending products became available. TIC volume dipped during the downturn along with other property types, but appears to have flattened.
Now, for those asterisks. As we zoom in and take a look at 2009, Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Market Check Up, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged macro trends, sales volume, san francisco, san francisco real estate | 5 Comments »
August 12, 2009
If you follow the real estate market, you’ve probably heard that things have been picking up these last few months. Q1 2009 was ice cold. The market began to thaw in Q2, and here in Q3 we’re continuing to see a lot of action. Most of the churning is taking place below $1M, but there has been a higher incidence of luxury homes selling these past couple of months.
Is the blaze beginning to subside?
How much has the market picked up? We set out to find the answer using a very simple approach. We tallied up all the Single Family Home and Condo sales taking place per month dating back to June 2006. Here’s a look at the trend:
Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged condo sales, market conditions, market trends, real estate trends, sales volume, san francisco real estate, single family home sales | 4 Comments »
July 31, 2009
Lets find out, shall we? Since the 1st half of ’09 is officially over and recorded, we crunched some numbers and then compared it to the same period for ’08. What we found leads us to some very general statements about year over year price declines in San Francisco. We say “very general” because we’re looking at the City as a whole. Different neighborhoods of course behave in different ways. Matter of fact, each individual property behaves in a unique fashion. In any case, here is what we found:
Single family home prices have come down 18% and condo prices have come down 15% since this time last year.
Here is the spreadsheet:
——————————————————————————————————————————————
| SFH |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Avg SP |
Med SP |
Avg PPSF |
|
|
| 1st Half 09 |
$958,995 |
$718,000 |
$578 |
|
|
| 1st Half 08 |
$1,217,186 |
$865,000 |
$697 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Change |
-21.21% |
-16.99% |
-17.02% |
-18.41% |
Avg Using 3 Methods |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Condos |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Avg SP |
Med SP |
Avg PPSF |
|
|
| 1st Half 09 |
$779,023 |
$669,500 |
$646 |
|
|
| 1st Half 08 |
$921,474 |
$800,000 |
$741 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Change |
-15.46% |
-16.31% |
-12.80% |
-14.86% |
Avg Using 3 Methods |
——————————————————————————————————————————————
The numbers here are pretty compelling. Any way you slice it, whether you’re looking at medians, averages, or price per square foot, prices are down and local real estate is on sale. The difference one year makes is quite substantial. The market has changed so quickly that many are still scratching their heads wondering what happened and what’s to come.
There's a sale going on... 15-18% off! (Image courtesy of zimbio.com)
Click HERE to view more articles that analyze SF’s market as a whole.
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Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged price declines, san francisco housing trends, san francisco property value trends, san francisco real estate | 5 Comments »
June 29, 2009
Here are some interesting facts and figures we ran today that corroborate the story of two markets, which we wrote about a few days ago. What exactly did we look at?
We isolated all sales that have taken place from January 1 through June 1 and compared 2008′s performance to 2009′s. The sales were divided up by price bracket. Our goal was to see which price brackets have seen the biggest drops (or rises) in activity since this time last year.
Sales volume by price bracket - click to enlarge
- The number of transactions in the sub $500K range is actually UP from last year… by 21.82%.
- The number of transactions in the $500,000 to $749,000 range is down 13.55% from last year.
- The $750,000 to $999,999 bracket is down 45.02% from last year.
- The $1M to $1,249,000 bracket is down 55.38% from last year.
- The $1.25M to $1,499,000 bracket is down 60.14% from last year.
- The $1.5M to $1,999,999 bracket is down 60% from last year.
- The $2M to $2,999,000 bracket is down the most: 64.89% from last year.
- The $3M to $4.9M bracket is down 41.18% from last year.
- And the $5M+ bracket is down the second most, with a 64.29% decease in transactions from this time last year.
Final Thoughts
For all price brackets, the number of transactions is down 32% year over year. Since that seems to be the norm, it could be deduced that anything less is a sign of relative strength while anything more is a sign of relative weakness.
Sales on the low end continue to show signs of strength in 2009. Essentially, homes priced less than Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged market commentary, market trends, real estate market analysis, sales volume, san francisco, san francisco real estate, transaction volume | Leave a Comment »
June 25, 2009
As most of you know, the San Francisco Association of Realtors has divided the city up into 10 market areas. Curious to find out what’s been transpiring on a district by district basis here in ’09, we decided to run a little analysis. Our goal? To take a look at the year over year performance of each district, using median sales price as our yardstick. Here’s what we did:
- Find the median sales price in each district from January 1, 2008 through June 1, 2008. Record it.
- Find the median sales price in each district from January 1, 2009 through June 1, 2009. Record it.
- Calculate the year over year change for each district.
- Rank the 10 districts based on performance over this period.
- How are the 10 districts faring from last year? Photo courtesy of tenyearsofmylife.com
*Please note: You’ll need to familiarize yourself with THIS map in order to understand the MLS districts. All sales come from the MLS. These do not include private transactions or sales taking place at new developments. Property types included in the analysis include single family homes, condos, TIC’s, lofts, and stock cooperatives.
What did we find? Continue reading for the chart –> Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged district analysis, real estate trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate, san francisco real estate trends 2009 | Leave a Comment »
June 19, 2009
The University of Wisconsin just completed a survey which was released by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE). The survey involved questioning the AFIRE’s 200 members regarding their feelings on the US real estate market, which cities would be first to recover, and when recovery would begin. Here are some bullet points, and to check out the entire article courtesy of CNBC, click HERE.
First Cities To Recover:
- Washington D.C. (favored heavily)
- New York, NY.
- San Francisco, CA.
- Boston, MA.
- Los Angeles, CA.
Timing for Real Estate Recovery:
- Most respondents feel that recovery will begin in late Q2 2010.
- Investments during the latter half of ’09 will out-strip investments made in the first half of ’09.
Sectors to Recover First:
- Office Sector
- Multi-Family Sector
- Industrial Sector
"And the survey says!"
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Posted in Macro-Level Info, News | Tagged afire.org, association of foreign investors in real estate, macro level real estate analysis, real estate, real estate trends | Leave a Comment »
June 8, 2009
It’s about that time again. With sales activity picking up sharply in the last couple of months, we’ve decided to update our rankings for San Francisco’s 85 neighborhoods based upon the number of sales that have occurred in each one.
Sales numbers include single family homes, condos, TICs, lofts, stock cooperatives, 2-4 unit buildings, 5+ unit buildings, and land. Noe Valley still leads the pack and Bernal has made a big upward move to the #2 spot since we last ran this report. Potrero Hill, Pacific Heights, and SOMA round out the Top 5.
And yeah, we know this analysis doesn’t control for the size of the neighborhoods, but we find it interesting nonetheless.
Which neighborhoods have all the ACTION?
| Rank |
Neighborhood |
Number of Sales |
| 1. |
Noe Valley |
84 |
| 2. |
Bernal Heights |
51 |
| 3. |
Potrero Hill |
46 |
| T-4. |
Pacific Heights |
44 |
| T-4. |
South of Market (SoMa) |
44 |
| 6. |
Inner Mission |
43 |
| 7. |
Eureka Valley/Dolores Heights |
39 |
| 8. |
South Beach |
37 |
| 9. |
Excelsior |
36 |
| 10. |
Parkside |
35 |
To see the remainder of the list, continue reading –>
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Posted in Countdowns & Rankings, Macro-Level Info, Neighborhood Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged 2009 sales, neighborhood rankings, number of sales, san francisco, san francisco real estate, trends | Leave a Comment »
May 22, 2009
Well lets just find out, shall we?
We ran some reports to answer this question. It’s an important question as there are many people shopping for homes– around 65% of whom are open to TIC ownership.
First, we calculated the number of sales of single family homes, condos, TICs, lofts, and stock cooperatives that have taken place in San Francisco from January 1 through May 1. We cut off the analysis at May 1st because some agents take a couple weeks to update their sales in the MLS, which would skew this year’s number.
Next, we calculated how many sales during that same time period were attributed to TICs. Then we divided the number of TIC sales by the first calculation (which represents total sales) to arrive at our final number… the percentage of total sales attributed to TICs. Plotting the percentages over the past few years gave us a trend and a source from which we could make some comments:
Percentage of total sales attributed to TICs over time (click to enlarge)
To see commentary and conclusions, continue reading –>
Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Home Buying, Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, Tips | Tagged 2009 trends, buyer tips, san francisco, san francisco real estate, tenancy in common, tics, Tips, trends | Leave a Comment »
May 18, 2009
About six weeks ago we wrote about our observations that the high end of the market is hurting while the low end is experiencing a mini-boom. We now have more evidence that this trend is taking place.
Terradatum, a company that crunches and publishes real estate statistics, puts together a list of spreadsheets and sends it out to the SFAR (San Francisco Association of Realtors) each month. We borrowed some data from Terradatum’s most recent email blast and built our own graph. We were interested in seeing how San Francisco’s housing market has changed over the past two years.
How badly is the luxury market hurting?
First, we took the median list price for single family homes in the City and plotted the monthly points over the past two years. Then we took the median sales prices for single family homes in the City and plotted those monthly points over the past two years. The results were pretty nifty. Not only did we find a trend, but we actually identified the cross-over point… the point in time where the luxury market started to recede and the low end of the market began to pack more oomph. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Home Buying, Home Selling, Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, Tips | Tagged luxury market, predictions, real estate trends, san francisco, san francisco housing market, san francisco real estate, terradatum, Tips, trends | 2 Comments »
May 7, 2009
Attention statistic addicts: We’ve got some numbers here that will update you on the current state of the market.
How close are we to 1/2 price?
Here is our method:
First we isolated the month of April in our analysis and ran median sales prices for single family homes as well as condominiums dating back to 1995. Next, we inflation adjusted the medians so that we could control for the changing value of the dollar over time. Last, we plotted the points on a chart to come up with a trend. The numbers represent the San Francisco resale market and here’s what we found: Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged april 2009, home prices, home values, market analysis, median sales prices, san francisco, san francisco real estate, trends | Leave a Comment »
April 30, 2009
An article on Realtor.org ranks the largest metros in the nation that have undergone the most extreme drops in rental rates in Q1 2009. San Francisco tops the list, with a 2.8% decline over the first quarter from Q4 2008. Here is the remainder of the list:
- San Francisco, CA: -2.8 percent
- New York, NY: -2.6 percent
- San Jose, CA: -2.5 percent
- Long Island, NY: -2.3 percent
- Charlotte: NC: -1.3 percent
- Chicago, IL: -1.2 percent
- San Antonio, TX: -0.9 percent
- Cleveland, OH: -0.9 percent
For a separate but related article referencing the metros with the largest rent declines in Q4 2008, click HERE. Salt Lake City tops that list, with a 5.7% decline from the previous quarter.
Renters: Dust off those leases. It's time to negotiate!
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Posted in Countdowns & Rankings, Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, News, Tips | Tagged lists, q1 2009, q4 2008, rent, rental rates, rental trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2009
Days on Market (DOM) is the amount of time it takes a particular property to sell. The clock starts the moment the property hits the market and ends the moment it goes into “pending” status. Days on Market is a funny metric in our MLS system. We’ve discussed its shortcomings in previous posts and although we’d like to see some changes made to how it is measured, we still take a look at the trends on a regular basis.
We tracked DOM through April 26, 2009 (yesterday) and arrived at median and average figures. Next, we lined up this year’s performance thus far with the performance of years past. We isolated the time period from January 1 through April 26 during each year so we could have an apples to apples comparison.
Are homes taking longer to sell in 2009? Or is the market heating up? DOM should give us some insight into the current trend. When markets are hot, DOM is low because it takes less time to sell a property. When markets get cold, DOM creeps up. Let’s take a look at what’s going on here in San Francisco:
DOM Trends for Single Family Homes (click to enlarge)
This chart shows us DOM trends over the past 15 years. Clearly, 2009 has not shown any signs of heating up as compared to years past. Matter of fact, it has posted much weaker numbers than just a year ago. So where is the opportunistic info in this? Our take is that when sellers spend more time on the market, as they are now, they get a little nervous and are more willing to negotiate. This of course is a general statement – each home presents a unique set of circumstances. But the numbers here are glaringly obvious.
How about the same trend for Condominiums? Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged 2009, analysis, days on market, dom, opportunities, real estate trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate | Leave a Comment »
April 15, 2009
An article on CNN Money the other day got us thinking about the overall health of the San Francisco real estate market. Sure, prices are down. No market has been immune to the country’s economic downturn. But some have been hit with a cold while others are bedridden with pneumonia.
Time for a check up
The article mentioned above talks about the Miami real estate market. Some tidbits:
- There are 13,200 homes for sale in Miami right now.
- There are 21,600 condos for sale in Miami right now.
We’re not alarmed by these numbers… after all, Miami is a very different market than San Francisco and comparing the two is not exactly “apples to apples”. However, there is a way we can normalize data between the two markets to control for the differences. We can accomplish this by looking at MSI, or months supply of inventory. We’ve written about this metric before. Basically, months supply of inventory is a measure of how many months it would take to sell off all of today’s inventory (active listings) if new listings ceased coming on the market immediately. It is calculated by taking the total active listings in a market and dividing it by the number of homes under contract. For example, lets say there are 10 condos for sale in a market and 5 have gone into contract during the current month. This market has just 2 months supply of inventory, which is pretty hot.
Markets that have 0-3 months supply of inventory are considered hot. 3-6 months is in balance, 6-9 months is cool, and 9 or more months is cold.
When we compare Miami to San Francisco, here’s what we currently see:
- Miami currently has a 52-month glut, I, I mean, supply of condos. That means it would take over 4 years for all of today’s active condo listings to sell if new units stopped coming on the market immediately. Add to that shadow inventory, foreclosures (which are a huge problem there) and pocket listings and… Holy toledo!! Ok, now we’re alarmed.
- San Francisco, according to the highly respected real estate analysis company Terradatum, has Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Appraisal 101, Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis, Tips | Tagged condos, demand, inventory, miami florida, months inventory, months supply, national trends, real estate trends, san francisco, san francisco real estate, single family homes, supply | Leave a Comment »
2009 : A Rough and Tumble Year
June 29, 2009Here are some interesting facts and figures we ran today that corroborate the story of two markets, which we wrote about a few days ago. What exactly did we look at?
We isolated all sales that have taken place from January 1 through June 1 and compared 2008′s performance to 2009′s. The sales were divided up by price bracket. Our goal was to see which price brackets have seen the biggest drops (or rises) in activity since this time last year.
Sales volume by price bracket - click to enlarge
Final Thoughts
For all price brackets, the number of transactions is down 32% year over year. Since that seems to be the norm, it could be deduced that anything less is a sign of relative strength while anything more is a sign of relative weakness.
Sales on the low end continue to show signs of strength in 2009. Essentially, homes priced less than Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in Macro-Level Info, Nerdy RE Analysis | Tagged market commentary, market trends, real estate market analysis, sales volume, san francisco, san francisco real estate, transaction volume | Leave a Comment »