From a reader:

I think a great topic is to discuss the latest DQ News SF numbers. September was supposed to be the month where all hell broke loose for home buyers. NO JUMBO LOANS everybody screamed since the credit meltdown occurred in Aug. And yet, SF prices STILL went up 1.9%!

There goes the argument that higher end homes were dragging up the median. The fact of the matter is, District 7, 94123 where I look is having a record year in terms of prices. Pacific Heights (94115/94109) is also up as well.

The crazier thing is, people are going to get paid RECORD BONUSES this year come Jan/Feb 2008, and good locations are going to get that much more demand as pent up demand has been building for two years now.

Well, as sfnewsletter points out, we’re still doing pretty good year over five and 10 year:

Okay, so the market has cooled, can we all agree on that? According to DataQuick, sales volume for the Bay Area has decreased 17.3% on a year-over-year basis (469 sales last month versus 567 in September 2006). That’s real, but it’s not the end of the world. Yes, San Francisco sales volume was down 17.3%, and median sales price only up 1.9% ($759,000 to $773,500) year over year. But how do we stack up over five years, or ten?

Using DataQuick’s own numbers, we can conclude San Francisco’s sales volume of today is down 3.7% from 487 units sold in September 2002 (a pretty banner year, we might add), but median sales price is up 44.8% from $534,000.

Go back to 1997, and we see our volume is up 33.6% from 351 units, and median is also up 152% from a 1997 median of $307,000.

Nothing but blue skies, fresh roses, and smiling faces in the San Francisco market (not entirely true, but it sounded good).