That’s why CNBC is taking a closer look once again at the million-dollar market, this time with a summertime twist.

(Read More: Vacation Home Sales Sizzle, Rentals Booking Fast)

The Million-Dollar Home special, which returned this past Spring to resounding response, is now venturing to the vacation home market. As before, it will be a contest.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100839349

A total of 5,404 houses and condominiums were sold, down 1.8 percent from January and more than 6 percent from February of 2012, DataQuick said.

The median sales price for a home in the nine-county area was $405,000. That was down 2.4 percent from January but still nearly 25 percent higher than a year ago.

Although prices remain well below the peak of several years ago, they have soared by double digits each month for the past nine months when compared with the same months a year earlier. The gains have topped 20 percent in the past four months in year-over-year comparisons, DataQuick said.

“Isn’t this Economics 101? Supply and demand?” DataQuick President John Walsh asked in a statement. “If demand outstrips supply in a free market, the price goes up.”

“Now, with a recovering economy, prices still closer to the bottom than to the top, with ultra-low mortgage interest rates and tight supply, the stage is set for price gains. This spring is going to be interesting,” Walsh said.

There were continuing indications that California’s housing market is recovering from its five-year slump.

“Foreclosure activity is well below peak levels reached in the last few years. Financing with multiple mortgages is low, and down payment sizes are stable,” DataQuick said in a statement.

Sales in February shifted from low-cost, distressed homes to mid-market and higher properties, with the number of homes selling for $500,000 or more jumping by 27.7 percent, DataQuick reported.

Foreclosures and short sales, those in which the price was less than the amount owed on the property, both were down over January and there were a lot fewer of them compared with February a year ago.

Investors, as compared with first-time homebuyers, accounted for a sizeable chunk of the sales. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought 28.2 percent of all Bay area homes.

That was an all-time high based on DataQuick figures going back to 2000, the company said.

In Southern California, homes sales continued strong, with 15,945 sold – the most for a February in the past six years.

The median sales price in Los Angeles and five other counties was $320,000, DataQuick reported Wednesday.

Article source: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/mar/14/sf-bay-area-february-home-sales-dip/

A total of 5,404 houses and condominiums were sold, down 1.8 percent from January and more than 6 percent from February of 2012, DataQuick said.

The median sales price for a home in the nine-county area was $405,000. That was down 2.4 percent from January but still nearly 25 percent higher than a year ago.

Although prices remain well below the peak of several years ago, they have soared by double digits each month for the past nine months when compared with the same months a year earlier. The gains have topped 20 percent in the past four months in year-over-year comparisons, DataQuick said.

“Isn’t this Economics 101? Supply and demand?” DataQuick President John Walsh asked in a statement. “If demand outstrips supply in a free market, the price goes up.”

“Now, with a recovering economy, prices still closer to the bottom than to the top, with ultra-low mortgage interest rates and tight supply, the stage is set for price gains. This spring is going to be interesting,” Walsh said.

There were continuing indications that California’s housing market is recovering from its five-year slump.

“Foreclosure activity is well below peak levels reached in the last few years. Financing with multiple mortgages is low, and down payment sizes are stable,” DataQuick said in a statement.

Sales in February shifted from low-cost, distressed homes to mid-market and higher properties, with the number of homes selling for $500,000 or more jumping by 27.7 percent, DataQuick reported.

Foreclosures and short sales, those in which the price was less than the amount owed on the property, both were down over January and there were a lot fewer of them compared with February a year ago.

Investors, as compared with first-time homebuyers, accounted for a sizeable chunk of the sales. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought 28.2 percent of all Bay area homes.

That was an all-time high based on DataQuick figures going back to 2000, the company said.

In Southern California, homes sales continued strong, with 15,945 sold – the most for a February in the past six years.

The median sales price in Los Angeles and five other counties was $320,000, DataQuick reported Wednesday.

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Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/14/5262908/sf-bay-area-february-home-sales.html

(Read More: Is the Refi ‘Apocalypse’ Really Upon Us?)

Analysts at Clear Capital, which runs a four-month moving average price index, note that January’s numbers show, “momentum stalls.” While they blame this on seasonal slowdowns, they point to Florida as a concern.

“Florida metros, namely Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville, were all missing from the top 15 performing market list. Since September 2011, at least one of these markets made the list,” cautions Dr. Alex Villacorta, Director of Research and Analytics at Clear Capital. “While this isn’t confirmation that the recovery is finished in the sunshine state, it’s certainly something to keep an eye on. These markets led the recovery in late 2011, and share some of the hallmarks for recovering markets overall.”

Florida’s housing market has been driven by distressed homes, and investors buying them at a rapid pace.

Other markets that saw the most distress during the housing crash, like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and much of California, have also seen so much investor demand, that prices are up by double digits from a year ago.

(Read More: New Housing Fears: Home Prices Rising Too Fast?)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100435276

“You folks will continue to outperform the U.S. economy and all of California,” predicts Wells Fargo’s chief economist, John Silvia.

Of course, prognosticators can be wrong. Many had predicted the state’s unemployment rate, for example, would continue in double digits through 2013. In fact, unemployment dipped below 10 percent last month for the first time in four years and continued to fall even further in the Bay Area. And job growth numbers were led by industries such as transportation, construction and leisure and hospitality, rather than high tech, which has almost single-handedly powered the local economy.

Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said: “2013 will be the year the recovery becomes real to many more people, not just for those in the tech sector. I don’t see that abating.”

Neither does Jon Haveman, chief economist at the business-oriented Bay Area Council. “It’s a dynamic time. There’s an intense march to occupy vacant space in San Francisco. Silicon Valley and the mid-Peninsula are very hot, and there’s a real uptick in the East Bay.”

Cascade of construction

The evidence is not hard to find. A phalanx of construction cranes from Rincon Hill to upper Market Street. At Mission and Fremont streets, Los Angeles’ Kilroy Realty Trust is building a 27-story tower for Salesforce.com. Kilroy is building 560,000 square feet of space in Sunnyvale for LinkedIn, one of a slew of new projects in Silicon Valley. In the East Bay, work begins in 2013 on the $1 billion transformation of the old Oakland Army Base into a regional shipping and logistics center.

Much of the development and its economic effects continue to be driven by the tech sector, of course. According to a recent Bay Area Council analysis, every new tech job creates four jobs in other areas. “Tech has terrific spillovers,” Haveman said.

It’s also transforming the skyline of San Francisco. By December 2013, New York’s Tishman Speyer Properties will have completed construction of a 10-story, 286,000-square-foot office building on what was a vacant parking lot at Howard and First streets. The first new office building in San Francisco since 2007, the Foundry Square development is designed to meet “tech tenant demands and needs perfectly,” the managing director of Tishman Speyer’s San Francisco office e-mailed real estate brokers this year.

Along with a partner, JPMorgan Chase Asset Management, Tishman Speyer is looking to break ground next year on a 26-story, 450,000-square-foot office building one block away at 222 Second St. A block south, construction begins early in the new year on two condo complex towers, of 38 and 43 stories, at 201 Folsom St.

“The market is very strong,” said Jeffrey Heller, president of Heller Manus Architects, which did design work on 201 Folsom. Another Heller Manus project, a 54-story office and residential tower at 181 Fremont St., in the Transbay Transit Center development area, got the go-ahead from the Planning Commission last month.

“It’s going to be a pretty heady year,” said Alan Mark, whose San Francisco firm specializes in condominium research and consultancy. “Multiple offers will be even more intense as the economy continues to recover,” he said, referring to the comparative scarcity in the residential real estate market.

Micro-apartments coming

Apart from the 4,200 new, mostly rental units coming on the San Francisco market beginning in 2013, the first batch of 220-square-foot micro-apartments could begin construction as early as the spring, said Patrick Kennedy, whose company, Panoramic Interests in Berkeley, is building the 11-story, 160-unit complex at Ninth and Mission streets, half a block from Twitter’s Market Street headquarters.

“I’d like to build 10,000 of these in San Francisco,” said Kennedy, who recently completed work on a four-story, 23-unit building of rentals occupying 285 square feet, slightly larger than micro-apartments, in an alley off gritty Sixth Street. They start leasing in January.

“They’re ideal for single creatives, and they help the wider economy. A small, cheaper apartment encourages them to spend more time and money outside,” he said.

Revitalizing Mid-Market

These and other real estate developments, primarily in the South of Market and Mid-Market areas of San Francisco, “are laying the groundwork for the retail trend that will take center stage in San Francisco over the next couple of years – the revitalization of the long-blighted area of Market Street between 6th and 9th streets,” according to a 2013 forecast to be released next month by Cassidy Turley, a commercial real estate consultancy.

The report notes that San Francisco already has the lowest shopping center vacancy rate (4 percent) in the country, and it is likely to fall further in 2013. With the number of new retail openings in the East Bay – for example, the Paragon Outlet center in Livermore last month, and Target’s plans to open a 140,000-square-foot store in Alameda in October – the area also ranks “within the top 10 U.S. markets for retail development,” the report says.

“Many retailers who typically look first to Manhattan for flagship locations are increasingly skipping the Big Apple and looking to the West Coast instead,” the report stated.

Lots of tourists and business travelers will also be looking to these environs. Apart from a “few small holes,” the refurbished Moscone Center is fully booked for 2013, and if 2012 was a record for visitors to the Bay Area, 2013 is shaping up even better, said Joe D’Alessandro, president of San Francisco Travel.

Then there are specific attractions, from the lights on the new Bay Bridge to the opening of the redesigned Exploratorium at Pier 15, the World Baseball Classic at ATT Park and, of course, the America’s Cup. Expect more visitors from Europe and Asia with new nonstops from Shanghai, Paris, Copenhagen and Taipei, Taiwan, to San Francisco International Airport, bringing 2,000 more passengers in daily.

“San Francisco is going to be a place to be in 2013,” D’Alessandro said. “So long as the economy holds.”

Yes, there is the “fiscal cliff,” which, as of the weekend, the country seemed more likely to topple over. A Bay Area Council survey last week found the majority of 400 senior executives and economic development officials thought that investment and hiring was already slowing because of fears of tax increases and spending cuts.

Looking to Washington

More immediately, 400,000 Californians will lose unemployment benefits next month if a deal isn’t reached by Dec. 31, according to the state Employment Development Department.

“It’s not like all of a sudden the economy will plunge into recession. And Washington has time to fix things before it gets serious,” Haveman said. “All the same, Armageddon is a possibility.

“The Bay Area, with all its economic energy, won’t be hit as bad as the rest of the nation, but growth will slow dramatically.”

Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com Blog: www.sfgate.com/ columns/bottomline Twitter: @andrewsross Facebook: sfg.ly/doACKM

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Bay-Area-economy-looking-bright-for-2013-4142769.php