The median price for houses and condominiums in the nine-
county Bay Area increased to $400,000, up 2.6 percent from April
and 7.5 percent from May 2011, the San Diego-based data seller
said today in a statement. Almost 39 percent of purchases
exceeded $500,000, the most since August 2010.

“It’s not exactly a stampede, but people are starting to
move off the housing-market sidelines in numbers we haven’t seen
in quite a while,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in the
statement. “Foreclosures are a significantly smaller portion of
what’s selling, and the higher-cost coastal markets are seeing
more activity.”

Total sales in the Bay Area rose to 8,810, up 15 percent
from the previous month and 26 percent from May 2011. It was the
highest tally for the month since 2006. Foreclosure sales
accounted for 22 percent of the total, down from almost 27
percent a year earlier and the lowest since January 2008.

Prices in both San Francisco and Santa Clara counties rose
6.2 percent, to a median $701,000 and $529,000, respectively.
The biggest increase was in Contra Costa County, where the
median gained 16 percent to $295,000. The Marin County median
price fell 2 percent to $627,000, according to DataQuick.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-14/san-francisco-bay-area-home-prices-climb-to-22-month-high.html

A total of 7,694 houses and condominiums sold last month in
the nine-county region, up 35 percent from February and 9.1
percent from March 2011, the San Diego-based data seller said
today in a statement. March sales were last higher in 2007, when
they reached 8,317. Condo resales totaled 1,734, the most for
any month since August 2006.

“While the changes we’re seeing are incremental, they’re
incremental in a positive direction,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in the statement. A backlog of distressed properties
and tight mortgage credit are “two of the big issues” still
holding back the market, he said.

The Bay Area median price last month was $358,000, up 10
percent from February and down 0.6 percent from March 2011.
Prices have dropped on a year-over-year basis every month since
October 2010, with last month’s decline being the smallest.

Prices in San Francisco County were unchanged from a year
earlier at a median $650,000. In Marin County, the median fell
almost 16 percent to $565,000.

Eight of the region’s nine counties had sales gains from a
year earlier, led by Solano with a 13 percent advance.
Transactions rose 11 percent in San Francisco and 7 percent in
Santa Clara. In Napa, the only county to have a decrease, sales
fell 0.8 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-19/san-francisco-bay-area-home-sales-reach-five-year-high-for-march.html

A total of 5,702 new and resale houses and condominiums
sold in the nine-county region, the eighth straight year-over-
year increase and a 4.1 percent gain from January, the San
Diego-based data seller said today in a statement. Foreclosures
and short sales, where the price is less than the amount owed,
made up half of all purchases. Cash buyers accounted for a
record 32 percent of deals.

Prices fell to a median $325,500, down 0.3 percent from
January and 3.6 percent from February 2011. It was the 17th
consecutive decline on an annual basis. Absentee buyers, mostly
investors, accounted for 26 percent of sales last month, a
record, said DataQuick, which began compiling real estate
information in 1988.

“Many potential buyers are still waiting for the lending
spigot to open more,” John Walsh, DataQuick’s president, said
in the statement. “Drum-tight credit conditions continue to
undermine housing, along with negative equity and the various
uncertainties plaguing would-be buyers.”

Alameda County led the region with a 33 percent sales gain
from a year earlier, and Marin County had the largest price
increase, climbing 7.6 percent to a median $535,500. San
Francisco rose 5.9 percent to $624,000.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Daniel Taub at
dtaub@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15/san-francisco-area-home-sales-climb-on-investor-purchases.html

San Francisco Bay Area Home Sales Below Average

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Real estate agent Paul Barbagelata, left, talks with a client during an open house in San Francisco.

Real estate agent Paul Barbagelata, left, talks with a client during an open house in San Francisco. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Home sales in the San Francisco Bay
Area were 22 percent below average last month as buyers waited
for better mortgage availability, DataQuick said today.

A total of 6,749 houses and condominiums sold in the nine-
county region, below the average of 8,644 property deals for
September since 1988, the San Diego-based data seller said in a
statement. Last month’s total was down 10 percent from August
and up 6.6 percent from a year earlier.

“Demand continues to accumulate,” DataQuick President
John Walsh said in the statement. “Empty-nesters want something
smaller, growing families want something bigger. People still
die, they get married, retire — all of this generates demand.
And only a fraction of that demand is being met in today’s
market.”

The number of transactions financed with adjustable-rate
loans, an indicator of mortgage availability, fell to 13 percent
in September from 16 percent in August, according to DataQuick.
Such loans were used in 45 percent of Bay Area sales over the
past decade. Jumbo mortgages, or those higher than $417,000,
were used in almost a third of all deals, little changed from
August and about half 2007’s tally.

The median home price in the Bay Area fell to $365,000,
down 1.4 percent from August and 7.6 percent from a year
earlier, DataQuick said. All nine counties had price declines
from a year earlier, led by a 13 percent decrease to $252,000 in
Contra Costa. Santa Clara fell 6 percent to $470,000 and San
Francisco fell 1 percent to $613,750.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/san-francisco-bay-area-home-sales-below-average-as-buyers-wait.html

By Dan Levy and Nadja Brandt

(Updates with room revenue in 18th paragraph; embargoed for use at 12:01 a.m. New York time on Aug. 30.)

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — San Francisco’s Nob Hill, the posh neighborhood overlooking downtown and the bay, may continue to be left out of a thriving market for hotel sales in the city as investors focus on the area surrounding the convention center.

Buyers paid a record $780 million for hotels in the 12 months through June, a 75 percent increase from the previous year, according to broker Atlas Hospitality Group, whose data go back to 1991. Operating costs won’t grow as fast as the amounts lodging companies can charge guests, so future increases in room rates will go primarily to the bottom line of owners and operators, said Tom Callahan, president of PKF Consulting USA.

“San Francisco has never been this hot, ever,” Alan Reay, president of Irvine, California-based Atlas Hospitality, said in a telephone interview. “You have a low cost of capital, pent-up demand and properties that wouldn’t normally come to market.”

The city’s revenue per available room, a measure of rates and occupancy that is the most important metric for hotel investors, is projected to rise 15 percent this year, more than double the U.S. average, according to San Francisco-based PKF. No new hotels are planned for at least five years, capping the supply at about 33,000 rooms, Callahan said.

Business at the Moscone Center convention complex, which has helped fill rooms in the South of Market area, will increase conference-related hotel bookings by 7.5 percent this year, the first annual gain since 2008, according to a forecast by the San Francisco Travel Association.

Where Sinatra Sang

Hotel buyers are favoring the area over Nob Hill, where Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald sang in nightclubs and Hitchcock filmed scenes for “Vertigo.” It has been a favored locale for the wealthy since a cable car line was installed on California Street in 1873, according to Kevin Starr, California’s former state librarian.

“Nob Hill is almost like an island up there,” Callahan said. “It’s got a great name, but if you are a traveling person you want to be proximate to South of Market, the convention center, the business community.”

San Francisco’s hotel-investment boom has been evident in the sales of Union Square’s JW Marriott for $96 million in February; the Westin in the South of Market area for $172 million in March; and the Financial District’s Mandarin Oriental for $63 million in May, the most expensive transaction on a per- room basis, according to Atlas Hospitality.

The sales surge may be blunted by the 13 percent slide in the Standard Poor’s 500 Index since July 22, even with expected increases in San Francisco’s overall daily room rates and occupancies, said Michael Depatie, chief executive officer of Kimpton Hotel Restaurant Group LLC.

‘Things Will Change’

“It’s highly likely things will change,” said Depatie, whose San Francisco-based company sold the Monaco San Francisco in Union Square in September of last year and the Argonaut in Fisherman’s Wharf in February. Those two, along with the Sir Francis Drake in Union Square, which Kimpton operates, sold for a combined $242.5 million. “Demand is linked to the economy.”

Real estate investment trusts, among the most active buyers of San Francisco properties, may have used up their funds set aside for acquisitions and now face retrenchment with share prices down, said David Loeb, hotel analyst at Milwaukee-based wealth manager Robert W. Baird Co.

Chesapeake Lodging Trust, based in Annapolis, Maryland, purchased Le Meridien San Francisco in the Financial District for $143 million in December and the Hotel Adagio in Union Square for $42.2 million in July, while Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, in Bethesda, Maryland, bought the Argonaut for $84 million and the Sir Francis Drake for $90 million, according to PKF.

Decisions Delayed

Would-be buyers will delay decisions until after September at the earliest to see how much companies intend to spend on year-end travel, according to Loeb.

“Why not wait to buy until you know the economic forecast?” he said. “If it’s your last chance, you want to make sure it’s a home run.”

While properties in other parts of the city are selling, Nob Hill hotels remain on the market. Among them are the InterContinental Mark Hopkins, whose Top o’ the Mark bar is off limits to Jimmy Stewart’s “Vertigo” character because of its precipitous view, and the Fairmont, where Tony Bennett publicly debuted his signature song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” 50 years ago in the hotel’s Venetian Room.

‘Exudes the Poetry’

“It exudes the poetry of urban life, like Sloane Square in London, the Rue du Bac in Paris, or any comparable area,” Starr, the former state librarian, said of Nob Hill. He has a home in San Francisco and is now a history professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Even with its storied past, Nob Hill is underperforming the rest of San Francisco. In July, the hotel occupancy rate was 92 percent in Fisherman’s Wharf, 90 percent in South of Market, 89 percent in Union Square and 86 percent in Nob Hill, according to Smith Travel Research Inc. in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Citywide, the rate was 79 percent this year through July, approaching the 81 percent record set in the like period of 2000. Revenue per available room averaged $129.68, the highest for January through July since Smith Travel began tracking the industry in 1987.

South of Market had the highest average nightly revenue per available room for the first seven months of the year at $147.06, followed by Nob Hill at $144.69, Union Square at $123.45 and Fisherman’s Wharf at $116.68, according to Smith Travel.

Accelerated Momentum

“The momentum toward South of Market was already going on before I came on board five years ago, but it’s accelerated within the last couple of years,” said Doug Housley, general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel on Market Street, which opened in 2001 as the district, also known as SOMA, was taking off.

A rough part of town for most of the 20th century, South of Market was transformed during the mid-1990s technology boom with rediscovered streets, rebuilt warehouses and a new Third Street home for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which led more arts groups to move to the area. The Giants baseball stadium followed in 2000, and a new convention center wing opened in 2003, adding 50 percent more space and increased foot traffic.

“The area around the convention center has become this hub of activity, which is continuing to grow and definitely has had an impact on hotels on the north side,” said Lew Wolff, co- founder of Los Angeles-based Maritz, Wolff Co., which owns the Fairmont with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Condo Conversion Stalled

Wolff’s attempt to convert some of the 591 guest rooms to condominiums stalled when city officials failed to act on his request before a deadline shut the door on all condo conversions. Wolff blamed the defeat on opposition from hotel unions, who feared that eliminating hotel rooms would result in fewer jobs.

“San Francisco has the highest union costs relative to achievable room rates, and that could be a concern to somebody interested in buying a hotel here,” Wolff said.

The Fairmont, which opened in 1907 and was featured in the 1980s TV series “Hotel,” is located on the cable car line and an “icon of the city,” said Reay of Atlas Hospitality. Also for sale on the line are the Huntington Hotel, owned by the Cope family, and Stanford Court Renaissance, operated by Marriott International Inc.

Even U.S. presidents seem to be part of the shift away from the stately lodgings that, as the Bennett tune says, reside “high on a hill.” Bill Clinton often stayed at the Fairmont during visits to the Bay Area, while President Barack Obama has twice opted for South of Market’s InterContinental San Francisco on Howard Street.

“The desirability of Nob Hill is down,” said Callahan of PKF. “It hasn’t fallen off the edge of the world for someone who remembers the heyday. But for young people, not a chance.”

–Editors: Daniel Taub, Stephen West

-0- Aug/29/2011 19:20 GMT

To contact the reporters on this story: Dan Levy in San Francisco at dlevy13@bloomberg.net; Nadja Brandt in Los Angeles at nbrandt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-08-29/san-francisco-vertigo-hotels-miss-boom-as-demand-shifts.html