Tech IPOs haven’t made a mark on SF housing — yet

The recent stock market debuts of San Francisco’s Uber, Lyft, Pinterest and Slack — collectively worth more than $120 billion — sparked fears of even more frenzy in what’s already the country’s most expensive housing market.

But the latest figures show the city’s median single-family home price is up only 1.2% to $1.65 million in May compared with a year earlier, according to the San Francisco Association of Realtors. Condo prices have fallen slightly, by 0.7% to $1.245 million, and there hasn’t been a noticeable jump in activity, according to real estate brokers.

That could change later this year after the expiration of lockup periods, which prevent employees from selling stock until six months after initial public offerings, and as companies keep hiring new employees.

Though median prices overall grew only slightly, they reflect a rebound after prices fell last year, which could be partially attributed to a boost from tech demand. But for now, experts see a stable housing market.

“It’s no busier than last year. Prices are not significantly up from last year,” said Gregg Lynn, a broker with Sotheby’s International Realty.

The summer months of July and August are typically slow as prospective buyers take vacations. Lynn said sellers are waiting to list homes to avoid foggy weather that could dampen showings, rather than in hopes of more tech buyers.

“They’re waiting not for the tech, but for the weather,” Lynn said. “We’re expecting this fall to be a really robust period.”

The biggest challenge continues to be lack of supply.

 Tech IPOs haven’t made a mark on SF housing — yet

Only 31 single-family homes in San Francisco received building permits in 2018, compared with 6,066 homes in buildings with two units or more, which have predominantly been rented. Only 216 single-family homes received building permits from 2014 to 2018, less than 1% of all units in that time period, according to the Planning Department.

“For every great house with a view, there are six families interested,” Lynn said.

Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist, estimated that the Uber, Lyft and Pinterest initial public offerings would lead to a 0.5% to 1.9% increase in housing prices.

Issi Romem, chief economist at real estate listings firm Trulia, also expects to see a modest effect from tech companies going public. He said he doesn’t expect housing prices to change significantly this year.

“I don’t think they will have no effect on the housing market,” Romem said, but “I don’t think they will have an Armageddon effect on the housing market.”

One factor keeping prices in check: Many Bay Area residents have simply given up on trying to buy where homes are the costliest in the country.

“We’ve exhausted demand. Homes are simply out of reach for a large enough share of people who want to buy,” Romem said.

Uber has about 7,000 Bay Area employees, while Lyft, Pinterest and Slack each lease enough office space to accommodate a few thousand employees. Only a fraction of those employees have benefited from the initial public offerings, Romem said.

There are signs, however, that the market is heating up after a slowdown that began last year. Redfin, a brokerage and listings website, said 35% of San Francisco homes listed with Redfin brokers experienced a bidding war in May, which it attributed to the tech IPOs. That’s up from 5% compared with January but down from the previous year.

Selma Hepp, vice president of business intelligence at brokerage Compass, said the market has rebounded after a rocky end to last year and may have benefited from more tech demand.

“We don’t know where the market would be right now without the IPOs. We could be seeing much larger declines,” she said.

Roland Li is a Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf

Article source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/With-prices-flat-tech-IPOs-haven-t-made-a-mark-14026206.php

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The Bay Area cities where rent is rising fastest


  • 5f890 920x920 The Bay Area cities where rent is rising fastest

  •  The Bay Area cities where rent is rising fastest

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Click through the slideshow to see where rents are rising fastest in the Bay Area. 

Some of the Bay Area’s most affordable suburbs are getting less so. Bay Area ex-pats would be shocked to learn the average rent in Antioch — a full 45 miles from downtown San Francisco —  has reached $1,756, according to RENTCafe.

But while rent appears to have stabilized in some of the Bay Area’s biggest cities (San Francisco and San Jose), numbers are still climbing in the suburbs.

ALSO: The most expensive counties to rent in the US are all in the Bay Area

RENTCafe, a rental listing website, compiled a list of cities where the rent has grown fastest over the past year. Among them are traditionally pricey locations, such as Larkspur and Palo Alto. But most of the cities on the list were considered fairly affordable places to live not so long ago, such as Campbell and Alameda.


See the gallery above for the full list. 

RENTCafe compiles the data by analyzing rent prices at apartment complexes with 50 or more units around the Bay Area. They left out any smaller cities or towns that didn’t have a statistically relevant housing stock that fits that description.


Despite recent increases, Antioch boasts the cheapest rent in the region. The most expensive can be found in Tiburon, the wealthy Marin County enclave where the average apartment goes for $4,543. The most shocking part of that statistic? There are apparently large apartment complexes in Tiburon.

Alix Martichoux is an SFGate supervising producer. Read her latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com


Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/most-expensive-cities-bay-area-ca-rent-housing-14028910.php

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Sound Off: What are common regrets or mistakes made by buyers or sellers, and how can I avoid them?

A: It’s always useful to remind folks of a simple truth: We earn our livelihood by helping our clients buy and sell homes successfully. The good thing is that most of our buyers and sellers listen and trust our advice from day one.

For buyers:

• Ignore the list price. In most cases, it’s only a placeholder or teaser price, the market will find its own price.

• Get pre-approved early. There’s nothing worse than finding the “it” house and being unable to make a credible offer.

• Look at the bigger picture and understand your time frame. The first place you get may not be your forever home and that’s OK.

For sellers:

• List price has nothing to do with sale price. See above.

• You must hire property stagers. Self-staging is usually a bad idea.

• To make money, you’ll have to spend some. Your home is now a product that needs investment to perform well.

The sooner folks accept these real estate truths, the closer we are to fulfilling their goals.

Kevin K. Ho, Esq., Vanguard Properties, San Francisco 415-297-7462, kevin@kevinandjonathan.com; Jonathan B. McNarry, Vanguard Properties, San Francisco 415-215-4393, jonathan@kevinandjonathan.com.

A: In this market, the most common regret for both buyers and sellers is around money — buyers question whether they paid too much, particularly in a competitive bidding situation, and sellers worry they left money on the table.

I help my clients avoid regrets by carefully going through comparables with them and using the data to support their choice.

For a buyer, I will remind them about all the other houses that went for high prices in comparison. For a seller, I remind them that their property was shown its best light, extensively and publicly marketed and the value of their home at the end of the day is the highest offer they receive.

When a client is feeling this way, it helps to have a live conversation to remind them about the many facets of their decision to offer or sell for that price, including convenience, timing and lifestyle, that may have outweighed their price considerations or constraints in the moment.

Nina Hatvany, Compass, 415-710-6462, nina@ninahatvany.com.

A: In the fast-paced world of Bay Area real estate, disclosures play a key role in assuring a smooth close for buyers and sellers. Buyers know they need to move quickly when they see their dream home, and sellers want to capture the buyers’ attention while the market is robust.

Because of compressed timelines associated with a quick sale, buyers and sellers can make mistakes on the disclosures. Sellers rush through the form completion and forget to note a previous leak. Buyers breeze through them online and fail to notice a neighborhood restriction.

This is where a Realtor is an important partner to both the buyer and seller. An agent’s trained eye can spot inconsistencies on the forms, notice missing documentation and work with the cooperating agent to fill in the gaps.

At a time when many offers are made without contingencies, well-prepared disclosures, and a thorough read of them, will prevent headaches down the road.

Anne Herrera, Sotheby’s International Realty, 415-601-3353, anne.herrera@sothebyshomes.com

Article source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/common-mistakes-buyers-sellers-real-estate-housing-14028749.php

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More Bay Area homes for sale, but still out of reach for most

Good news for Bay Area home buyers — houses are staying on the market longer, and more houses have “for sale” signs hanging on their front lawn.

Bad news for Bay Area home buyers — the increased choices in the market are likely caused by high prices, fewer offers and your exhaustion.

The number of homes for sale in the first three months of the year in the San Jose metro area rose 55 percent from the same time last year, the highest jump in the nation, according to a recent study by Trulia. In Oakland and San Francisco, housing inventory grew 28 percent from the first three months of last year.

“Definitely a big jump in inventory,” said Trulia economist Felipe Chacon. “Demand is ebbing a little bit.”

In the midst of a housing shortage and rising prices, the Bay Area market has flattened out, but not nearly enough to call it a buyer’s paradise. Agents and brokers say they are expecting another solid year of sales, but aren’t betting on the influx of IPO wealth making an impact beyond a few, local neighborhoods.

Nationally, inventory has edged up for the first time, year-over-year, since 2016, Trulia found. “The coastal markets are cooling,” Chacon said.

The supply of starter homes — listed for around $760,000 — on the San Jose market grew by 78 percent, according to Trulia. In San Francisco and Oakland,  less-expensive starter homes priced at around $530,000 increased 38 percent.

The days on market has grown more than 40 percent in San Jose, from 40 to 57 days, according to Trulia. The national average is 82 days from listing to completed sale.

Real estate agents say last year’s market fever has broken and buyers have become more willing to wait. But many also see signs of strong prices for sellers, and bidding wars through the spring home shopping season. Demand remains high for homes in strong school districts.

After a record seven-year run, Bay Area median home prices stalled in March, compared to the previous year. The median home price in the nine-county region fell .6 percent to $860,000, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic.

Fremont agent Sunil Sethi said demand has slowed, but buyers are snapping up homes in good neighborhoods. “It was not a very strong quarter, as far as buyers being out there,” he said. “The middle market is pretty good.”

In Fremont, the “middle market” is between $1.4 and $1.8 million, Sethi said. The price and East Bay location appeals to tech professionals commuting to major employers on the Peninsula, including Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.

In the South Bay, Alan Wang said the market is moving toward balance between buyers and sellers. The first few months of the year were slow, he said, but activity has recently picked up.

Wang analyzed home sales in Santa Clara County in April and the first two weeks of May. Between 2014 and 2018 during these periods, the ratio of homes sold to homes on the market was about 90 percent. This year, the same ratio was down to just 33 percent, meaning far fewer transactions for the number of homes on the market.

“Buyers are very picky now,” said Wang, based in Santa Clara. After years of ever-escalating prices and bidding wars, he added, “sellers are slowly adjusting their expectations.”

Other regions are seeing more robust inventory growth from a more traditional source — construction.

San Jose just nudged out Provo, Utah for the top housing inventory growth in the country. The  mountain community, home to Brigham Young University, saw for-sale-homes grow 53 percent from the prior year, and more than doubled the percentage of starter homes on the market. The median sale price for a starter home in Provo was $259,450.

In Utah, Chacon noted, developers have been building lots of new homes.


Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/23/more-bay-area-homes-for-sale-but-still-out-of-reach-for-most/

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Bay Area techies plan to ditch San Francisco for these 5 cities: Survey

Slack shares surge 60% over reference price in market debut

Slack pursued an unusual direct listing, meaning it did not have banks underwrite the offering.

read more

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/22/bay-area-techies-to-ditch-san-francisco-for-these-5-cities-survey.html

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