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Article source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/What-will-happen-to-SF-home-prices-if-Slack-13598371.php

Economic and market uncertainties sent January home sales down to their lowest level since April 2008, according to the latest California Association of Realtors sales and price report. Sales in January dropped double-digits on a year-over-year basis in the Los Angeles Metro Area, Central Coast, Central Valley and Inland Empire regions, while home sales in the San Francisco Bay Area fell 5.8 percent from a year ago.

Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in the state totaled 357,730 units in January, down 3.9 percent from the revised 372,260 level in December and down 12.6 percent from home sales in January 2018 of 409,520.

“California continued to move toward a more balanced market as we see buyers having greater negotiating power and sellers making concessions to get their homes sold as inventory grows,” said C.A.R. President Jared Martin. “While interest rates have dropped down to the lowest point in 10 months, potential buyers are putting their homeownership plans on hold as they wait out further price adjustments.”

The statewide median home price declined to $538,690 in January, down 3.4 percent from $557,600 in December and up 2.1 percent from a revised $527,780 in January 2018.

Forty of the 51 counties reported by C.A.R. posted a sales decline in January with an average year-over-year sales decline of nearly 19 percent. Twenty-eight counties declined by double-digits on an annual basis, and 10 counties experienced an increase in sales from a year ago.

After experiencing its worst annual sales drop in more than eight years in December of 17.5 percent, sales in the San Francisco Bay Area bounced back with a more moderate decline of 5.8 percent in January. The median home price continued to increase in all regions, though at a slower pace. On a year-over-year basis, the Bay Area median price rose 4.5 percent from January 2018. Home prices in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties continued to remain above $1 million, but Marin County recorded a 12.8 percent annual price decline.

“Real estate is cyclical and what we are experiencing here is a rebalancing of the market. Home prices were rising very quickly and too steeply. Many qualified buyers had become frustrated after repeatedly losing out to multiple offers on their dream home,” said Alan Barbic, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.

Home sales in six of the nine Bay Area counties fell from a year ago, and in Napa, Contra Costa and Solano counties, sales declined by more than 10 percent. Santa Clara Country home sales dropped 5.4 percent from January 2018 and were down 23.3 percent from December 2018.

The January 2019 median home price for a single-family home in Santa Clara County was $1,185,000, down 1.3 percent from the January 2018 median of $1,170,000 and down 3 percent from the December 2018 median of $1,150,000.

C.A.R. reports Santa Clara County’s Unsold Inventory Index, which is a ratio of inventory over sales, was at 3 months, up from 1.9 in January 2018 and 1.8 months in December 2018. The benchmark for a healthy market is six months supply of inventory.

“Moderating home prices and lower interest rates will improve housing affordability and should bring more buyers back to the market as we head into spring,” said Barbic.

According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 4.35 percent for the week ending Feb. 21, down from 4.37 percent the previous week. The 30-year, fixed-mortgage interest rate averaged 4.46 percent in January, up from 4.03 percent in January 2018.

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Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/01/realtor-officials-say-january-home-sales-drop-price-adjustments-indicate-rebalancing-of-market/

San Francisco housing markets offer new buyer opportunitiesGetty

Buyers should revisit the housing markets in Los Angeles and San Francisco for new buying opportunities according to Selma Hepp, chief economist at the San Francisco office of Compass, the national luxury brokerage firm. “The story is there are real opportunities out there for buyers now. There have been price reductions which is good for buyers since there was strong price growth in Los Angeles and San Francisco over the last few years,” Hepp observes.

“I do think to bring (those) buyers in larger numbers who got buyer fatigue back into the market, there still needs to be more price reductions, Hepp predicts. She is talking about, the “buyer fatigue”  that hit many hot markets around the country during the summer.  That’s when buyers make offer after offer, often above asking price, only to lose out on the property to another buyer. Look to more inventory on the market to also bring buyers back.

Hepp’s January 2019 numbers point to the year-over-year decrease in home sales continuing at double-digit-percent rates, with the three-month average decline in the Bay Area at 16 percent. Los Angeles was down even further by 18 percent. “In other words, over the last three months, about 1,100 fewer units sold on average per month than last year in Los Angeles, while the Bay Area averaged about 700 fewer sales,” said Hepp. Hopefully, sellers are taking note of cooling buyer demand along with higher inventory numbers so they will change their pricing expectations to more sane levels.

Look to May 2018 to see when the separation on prices between Bay area buyers and sellers caused potential buyers to simply walk away. The numbers in units sold tell their own story. Consider there was a 4 percent increase in April 2018 which slid down to a 16 percent decrease in January 2019. “The decline in buyer demand led to a notably larger increase in price reductions than seen in prior years,” Hepp notes. Price cuts went from 7 percent of inventory in March 2018 to 34 percent in January 2019. “As a result of more homes selling at reduced prices, Bay Area communities saw year-over-year median home price growth of 3 percent in January 2019, the lowest rate observed in at least the last three years,” Hepp adds.

Buyer fatigue hit Los Angeles buyers last yearGetty

Heading south to Los Angeles, market dynamics differ a bit from San Francisco. In the Los Angeles area, Spring 2018 saw market prices appreciate 14 percent. Buyers were discouraged and began leaving the market. This caused the highest increase in properties with price reductions over the past three years. In January of this year, those numbers showed 30 percent of sales had price reductions. The spread between listing prices and actual sale prices was increasing.

The take-aways for buyers according to Hepp include good news and a dose of real-time reality. “Buyers now enjoy more favorable conditions than they did in the second half of 2018. However, many buyers have exited the market and are unwilling to purchase homes until they see larger price reductions and cooling home price growth.” Keep watching the market closely. Then jump in when the conditions are right because one thing is certain: real estate markets do change on a dime.

Article source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenparis/2019/02/23/buyers-should-revisit-los-angeles-and-san-francisco-housing-markets-for-new-opportunities/

In an early favorite for most unlikely real estate news event of the year, the town of Hillsborough has filed suit against publisher Florence Fang, owner of the famous “Flintstone House” at 45 Berryessa Avenue, over her modern Stone Age taste in landscaping.

According to a complaint filed in San Mateo Superior Court last week, Fang has made multiple additions to the property that have put the city in a Yabba Dabba Don’t sort of mood, including:

Beginning in early 2017, Ms. Fang began to install extensive improvements in the yard areas of 45 Berryessa. Some of these improvements involved large statues of dinosaurs and other figures and a sign reading “Yabba Dabba Doo.”

She also made non-decorative additions to the property, including a retaining wall, steps, columns, gates, a parking strip, and a deck. [...] Several of the improvements created life safety hazards that require immediate correction.

[...] Ms. Fang installed all of the improvements without planning approvals and without building permits.

City attorneys say that Fang ignored multiple stop-work orders issued since late 2017. The lawsuit also notes that the city fined Fang $200 in 2018 for what it calls “a highly visible eyesore” on the property.

With Fang flouting city orders numerous times, Hillsborough now wants a court to order the removal or reversal of alterations to the property.

Fang bought 45 Berryessa in 2017 for $2.8 million. The bulbous Berryessa home had lingered on the market for two years and had its price chiseled down from $4.2 million.

The real irony here is that, as Curbed SF noted in the past, the “Flintstone House” was not originally intended to resemble that Hanna-Barbera show’s cartoon architecture.

When architect William Nicholson built the place in 1976, the concept was to create a home entirely out of curves, using metal frames molded around balloons.

When painted white, the property resembles a series of otherworldly bubbles on the landscape. Only later, when repainted to its present orange and purple hues, did the kinship to the town of Bedrock emerge, and the nickname has stuck ever since.

Sean Fang, grandson of Florence Fang, told the San Mateo Daily Journal, “I think the dinosaurs are beautiful. They make everyone smile and should stay.”

Fang plans on fighting the lawsuit.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/18/18271104/hillsborough-lawsuit-flintstone-house-architecture-bay-area-cartoon