With 242 new listings for single-family homes, condos, and TICs last week, the supply of listed housing inventory in San Francisco has hit a five (plus) year high of over 1,900 active and available properties, up 27 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Once again in terms of demand, listed sales activity in August was down nearly 30 percent on a year-over-year basis to 362 transactions while recorded sales activity was down 12.3 percent on a year-over-year basis, both decade plus lows.
San Francisco’s Listed Inventory Spikes As Listed Sales Slide [SocketSite]
San Francisco Recorded Sales Activity Down 12.3% In August [SocketSite]

33 thoughts on “San Francisco Listed Housing Supply Hits New High”
  1. I walked up Cortland Ave. yesterday and could not believe the number of signs advertising open houses. There was an average of 2 or 3 on every street corner.

  2. What a great day! The sun is shining. The birds are singing, and the market is C-c-c-rashing as we speak.
    And if you don’t like the prices, just wait a month or two.
    It seems the practice of listing for what you paid, plus realtor fees is on the decline. Now it seems just about everyone’s opening offer is at least $100K off. Then the price drops start from there.
    I’m not sure, but it looks like one REO, a top floor 1387 square foot condo in Corona Heights, is listed for a hair above what the last buyer paid–in 1996!
    http://www.redfin.com/search#!lat=37.77017196507861&long=-122.43438720703125&market=sanfrancisco&region_id=17151&region_type=6&schools=false&sf=1,2&time_on_market_range=1-&uipt=3,2,1&v=5&zoomLevel=12
    Anyways, I hope everyone is having as great a day as I am.

  3. ^^
    Something’s off with that info. I think it unlikely that someone paid $600k plus in 1996 for a condo in Corona Heights. I remember the 96 RE market and $600 k back then would be a very desirable SFH in that neighborhood.

  4. Good houses are still moving if they are priced well and are solid properties. I just got outbid on a house in portrero hill. I was told 7 people were in contention for the place.
    I think the glut of housing consists mainly of the unrealistic people who are hoping someone will bail them out from their underwater mortgage. good properties still move fast.

  5. “Good houses are still moving if they are priced well and are solid properties.”
    I’ve mentioned more than once that saying “good houses are selling for good prices” doesn’t really mean much for the overall market. This real estate agent in Westchester County, NY summed it up very well on his blog (see URL):
    No one could predict after the stimulus where prices would go, but it is clear that what few buyers we have are skimming the absolute cream off the top and leaving the rest. They even fight over the good stuff, creating an illusion of urgency in isolated precincts. Overall, sadly, median home price is an illusion; it is a metric of the value of those few, unique sought after homes that people watch even when they weren’t on sale. They needed nothing. They were priced to the bone for their category.
    He gives very good advice to his clients:
    Here’s the reality: If you are multiple listed, staged well, tidy, and have been on the market for 60 or 90 days with no offers or few lookers, the market has spoken; you need to reduce your price. You aren’t the McClotchkees down at the end of the cul de sac who sold in the first 30 days. They had something, or ten things, you don’t have. And the only adjustment you can make to the buying public is price. A feature ad won’t do it. A newspaper display ad won’t get it done. Busting your agent’s chops to chase down Gladys Pflarphlingston for feedback on a showing 2 weeks ago won’t do it. If you are on the MLS, I can show you how many people have clicked on you online and clicked off every week since we listed. You aren’t a secret.
    As I said before, during the boom, crappy houses sold for good prices. I’m very happy when good houses are selling for good prices.

  6. What’s happening to the price listed?
    Are people listing homes for a higher price than before or did they start discounting them already?

  7. I sold my four bedroom, two bath single family Upper Market house for $200K over asking, and it was priced right. It showed nicely and there was a hungry buyer with cash to spend. These things are highly idiosyncratic.

  8. Btw, there was a good example of funny money in the Chron last week too:
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/12/BUFP1FBTJD.DTL
    The couple in question is complaining about how their perceived buying ability dropped from $625K during the boom, but is only $280K now. Of course, the husband is self-employed and probably doesn’t have proper documentation now, whereas they could have gotten a no-doc in 2006 based on stated income.
    The complain basically boils down to the fact that now we’re closer to traditional lending with 20% down and 28/36 debt ratios because those factors have predictable default rates. The free money of a few years ago has warped people’s minds, making them feel entitled to more.

  9. Tipster: “I’m not sure, but it looks like one REO, a top floor 1387 square foot condo in Corona Heights, is listed for a hair above what the last buyer paid–in 1996!
    Anyways, I hope everyone is having as great a day as I am.”
    Well hopefully your great day was based off more then some ‘prices are back to 1996 schadenfraude’…
    anon: “The ’96 Roosevelt sale was for a 3 unit building. Now it’s individual condos.”

  10. Arguably the market isn’t crashing so much as reverting to historical medians. The transition is actually going quite slowly, but is rough because of the extreme scale of the bubble that is deflating.
    I know a bunch of people in SF and nearby who are waiting in the hope the market will go back up enough to pay for their excesses. This is not a good time to buy, and it shows.

  11. No Rillion, my great day is 1900 listings following a week of 24 sales (last week, according to Redfin).
    79 weeks of inventory, and climbing fatser than the number of sales: now THAT’s a great day.

  12. Yeah, the “1996 – 3 units sale” makes sense. That fact (foreclosure price for what the WHOLE building sold for 14 years ago) explains the crazy swing of the 2000s.
    This is also why there’s such a disconnect in this market between sellers than can price right and those that simply can’t. Old time owners have much more flexibility in pricing. Bubbletoppers have none.
    They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Outside SF these got flushed out in 2 years, but in SF, delusion and access to enough cash flow is making the market look like a band aid removed in slow-motion.

  13. “following a week of 24 sales (last week, according to Redfin). 9 weeks of inventory, and climbing fatser than the number of sales: now THAT’s a great day”
    That was all totally incorrect too. MLS shows 60 sales 9/12 – 9/19 and a median of 696K. Inventory is now @ 1882, with 175 sales so far this month.

  14. The weekly calc of the state of the market is a noisy primrose path more than it is the “story.” I’m sure Fridays number spikes make you bears salivate and all, but weeks can be down to pure luck. There are 263 pending sales dating from 7/20 and on so the month will probably wind up looking closer to 400 sales.

  15. Agree with fluj that there is a lot of noise week-to-week. At least three weeks trailing or so is probably better than just looking at one week. The measure I gave earlier of three months trailing sales vs. inventory gave a very useful graph, but I haven’t done any charting on the weekly data, although I believe someone crunched the data in the other thread.

  16. Hey fluj, pay attention. The charts I referred to reflect nearly five years of data. Your weekly primrose path point is totally invalid. Listings are way up. Sales are way down. No weekly noise in that.

  17. What would make you think somebody was talking to you or reading links you threw up? This whole “I’m one of the four or five bears who dominate the site, so I’m going to pick up the conversation of the other four or five bears who dominate the site” thing is ludicrous.

  18. Could be because you quoted my post (with quotation marks even) them commented on it with a completely invalid point. Just a ludicrous coincidence, I guess. Reliable ol’ fluj.

  19. Oh, “story.” Well that’s my point. If you’regoing to insert yourself into every thread where you see bears arguing, and have the same points, why should anyone be bothered to differentiate?

  20. Tipster: “No Rillion, my great day is 1900 listings following a week of 24 sales (last week, according to Redfin).”
    I was just asking cause in your post saying what a great day you were having you mentioned nothing about supply or sales but talked entirely about prices and specifically about the property on Roosevelt. But I can see how you would go out of the way to talk about the thing that didn’t put in your a good mood as compared to the thing that did put you in a good moood. I do the same thing like when the Giants win and it puts me in a good mood I like to talk about the 49’ers cause you know, I’m talking out my … too! 😉

  21. “If you’regoing to insert yourself into every thread where you see bears arguing, and have the same points, why should anyone be bothered to differentiate? ”
    That would mean a lot more if the crux of your typical rebuttal wasn’t “all of your data is irrelevant/cherrypicked/not-micro-enough; here look at this non-apple irrelevant data point to see why the market is still going up.”
    I’m talking about comments similar to this paraphrase: meanwhile, while you bears are talking amongst yourselves about this big loss, check out this place in the Mission that is still getting $X which is $Y/sqft.
    Again, I would ask for your infinite wisdom (and true substance) about the market if you really think most people’s comments are devoid of substance.
    The comments in this thread largely focus on hard numbers, facts, and quotes by other realtors, with a little color commentary by tipster. I’m not sure why you could object to the part that is hard numbers, facts, and quotes by realtors, without advocacy or true argument, other than being curmudgeonly (no offense intended to curmudgeon).

  22. I don’t follow. This all stemmed from an incorrect weekly numbers, incorrectly extrapolated. Your characterization of what someone might have said elsewhere is not relevant. Again though, here you are picking up a conversation as if you are part of it. Four or five of you do that routinely and it’s silly because you, for instance, don’t think in lockstep with some of your fellows who intend to flame more than talk real estate.

  23. Maybe I misread, but I was part of the conversation above, and I *AGREED* with what you said! If I’m mistaken in my reading, think instead of my comment as a meta-commentary on how you repeatedly criticize people across various threads for doing what you do. The editor has mentioned it several times, but it seems to bear repeating.
    I actually miss the days when you used to post more because you used to post substance in some of the posts. Now, you only seem to show up for the drive-by sniping or the random update on a favorable result. Can we go back to the old days of flujanonn, please?
    Anyway, on the macroeconomic front, did anyone notice the housing starts numbers?
    http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/09/single-family-housing-starts-increase.html
    I would probably agree with CR’s opinion that it’s good for the housing market, but bad for the economy.

  24. I like to talk real estate, yes. I don’t like to argue with five people at once who beging by jumping in on off an errant point, each tweaking it sideways in their own way, yet still continuing as if they’re following the same train of thought, no. It’s not possible to have a coherent discussion that way.

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