Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
From the source:
The San Francisco housing market continued to show promising signs of recovery through October 2009. Pending single family home sales jumped to 271 homes in October 2009, which represents a 30% increase in the number of pending sales month over month and a 58% increase year over year. Although greater scrutiny in obtaining a mortgage is expected to extend the time between signed contracts and closings, the sharp rise in the number of homes under contract should lead to strong sales activity going forward.
The high level of home sales activity observed during the two previous quarters helped to reduce single family inventory levels to 639 homes on the market in October 2009, 200 fewer units on the market during the same month last year.
The jump in contract sales combined with the drop in active homes on the market brought the months supply of single-family home inventory to 2.4 in October 2009 from 4.9 the same time last year. This dramatic tightening in market conditions is encouraging and is a reflection of improvements to housing affordability driven by price adjustments and low interest rates.
Inventory levels fall while home prices at the lower-end of the market stabilize
The stabilization of home prices at the lower-end of the housing market combined with a more evenly distributed pattern of home sales activity across districts and price ranges resulted in a 3.4% month-to-month increase in the median single-family sales price to $760,000 in October 2009, marking a second consecutive month of increasing prices. In comparison to the same month the previous year, the median single-family sales price rose 3.3%, which was the first year-over-year increase since April 2008.
Although sales at the higher-end of the market have gained traction, lower-priced homes in District 10 (Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitation Valley, Portola, Excelsior, Crocker-Amazon) still account for more than one-fifth of all single family home sales during the month. Though relatively high, this is much improved from earlier in the year during which home sales in District 10 accounted for close to 40% of all sales activity in January 2009.
Despite high unemployment levels and continued job cuts, the extension, as well as expansion of federal programs should continue to promote housing demand. The First-Time (And Move-Up) Homebuyer Tax Credits extension and the increase in income limits from $75,000 to $125,000 for single-person households, and from $150,000 to $225,000 for married households should make the program marginally more valuable to buyers in San Francisco. However, the price limits of $800,000 excludes the higher-end of the San Francisco market. The Federal Reserve’s support of lower mortgage rates brought the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to 4.98% as of November 5, 2009. As a result of continued government intervention in the housing market, traditional supply/demand dynamics have shifted in this current environment, as tax credits and mortgage rate subsidization counter the negative effects of high unemployment levels and job market uncertainty.
The demand for condominium units continued to show signs of improvement into the last quarter of the year. Pending condominium sales nearly doubled from October of last year with 288 units under contract in October 2009. With more than 1,200 condominiums on the market in October of 2008, the dramatic price cuts and other incentives during the previous twelve-month period brought the condominium for-sale inventory to 998 units in October 2009.
As a result of these price reductions, the median condominium sales prices fell 9.2% from October 2008 to $640,000. Condominium sales in District 5 (Mission/Noe Valley/Castro/ Glen Park/Upper Market) and District 9 (South Beach/Potrero Hill/ Bernal Heights/ Mission Bay) still account for close to half of all condominium sales activity in the city.
Although inventory levels have retreated in recent months, the rising number of homes entering the early stages of foreclosure, as well as the existing shadow inventory might
continue to pose supply-side risks going forward. The concentration of job losses in white-collar employment sectors during the current down-cycle and the disproportionate
impact that this has had on the San Francisco economy increases the likelihood of pushing more distressed homeowners into foreclosure.
Data is as of the 10th of the month.
Sources: Terradatum
-FULL REPORT CLICK HERE [San Francisco Association of Realtors]
Tags: data, Home Sales Data, housing reports, San Francisco Real Estate, San Francisco Real Estate Sales Data, statistics
Posted in Stats & Numbers, market info | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Painful:
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday housing starts dropped 10.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000 units, the lowest level since April and the percentage drop was the biggest since January.
Financial markets had expected starts to rise to 600,000 units. September’s housing starts were revised upwards to a 592,000 unit rate from the previously reported 590,000 units.
“The trickle-down effect of the housing number is going to be amazing,” said Dan Cook, senior market analyst at IG Markets, Chicago. “It’s likely that more construction crews will get cut after this, and the supplier who supply those crews will be hurt as well. This is not good news at all.”
Groundbreaking for single-family homes fell 6.8 percent last month to an annual rate of 476,000 units, the lowest since May. Starts for the volatile multifamily segment tumbled 34.6 percent to a 53,000 annual pace, extending the previous month’s slide.
Compared to October last year, housing starts dropped 30.7 percent. The latest data will be a blow to the housing market, which had shown signs of stabilization after a three-year slump. Residential investment contributed to economic growth in the July-September period for the first time since 2005.
Ouch…
-US Inflation Edges Up, Housing Starts Fall Sharply [Reuters]
Tags: housing reports, real estate, Real estate outlook
Posted in theFrontSteps | No Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
The data is in and it’s true, the grass is not greener in the ‘burbs, and yet another reason to get thee to the city. “A new report released today by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing finds that the average Bay Area household spends more than $41,000 a year – nearly 60 percent of their income – on transportation and housing costs alone.” Are you kidding!?
Our simple math: living in the city = less time and money spent in transit. But if you must get down to details, check out the Terwilliger Housing & Transportation Costs Calculator, which we used to get some basic data in the image below. It’s pretty slick and definitely good ammunition to put in front of your boss when you ask to “work” out of the house or closer to home.
In regards to housing being “less expensive” outside of San Francisco (or any city):
-“Housing that appears affordable based solely on housing costs may not be truly affordable when it is located far from transit, jobs and services,” said Cisneros. “[The] report underscores the importance of broadening the understanding of housing affordability challenges to also include transportation costs, time and the environmental impacts of commuting.”
-[The report, Bay Area Burden] provides a comprehensive analysis of the “cost of place” in nine counties located throughout the San Francisco region by examining the costs and impacts of housing and transportation on residents, their neighborhoods and the environment. The report demonstrates the severity of the problem in the region and how the combined costs of housing and transportation are leaving San Francisco Bay Area workers with insufficient resources to meet their basic needs. The report finds that three fifths of all Bay Area residents live in communities that are unaffordable to households earning less than $80,000.
In terms of environmental impact (because it’s so hip to be green):
Bay Area Burden also demonstrates the unintended environmental impacts of [living in the 'burbs]. The successful implementation of greenhouse gas emission reduction plans in the transportation sector is particularly important in the Bay Area, where transportation accounts for 40.6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 33 percent nationally. Bay Area Burden illustrates how densely developed urban counties like San Francisco are estimated to have substantially fewer vehicle miles traveled per household (19.4) and thus lower per-household carbon dioxide emissions (20.2) than do more rural and suburban counties such as Solano, where those figures are 50.4 and 49.4 respectively. Considering that less than one in ten (9.5%) Bay Area workers use public transit, compared with 26.5% in the New York Metropolitan area and 11.1% in the Washington DC region, these figures are even more compelling [and SAD!!!].
Obviously, we take this data and use it for supporting a healthy and vibrant life in the city of San Francisco, but it clearly extends waaaay beyond our boundaries to other world class cities (New York, Chicago, Singapore, Tokyo, Paris, London, etc.), so if you happen to live in one of those areas, we’d be happy to hear your thoughts (in the comments below).
We keep trying to tell you, the city is THE place to be, now and in the future, so get in while you still can…
-Bay Area Burden Housing/Transportation Report Key Findings
-BayAreaBurden.org
-Terwilliger Housing & Transportation Costs Calculator
[Props go out to the Center for Neighborhood Technology for providing much of the data, and the Center for Housing Policy who provided much of the analysis of that data for the report.]
Tags: cost of living calculator, data, housing reports, san francisco
Posted in theFrontSteps | 15 Comments »
