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The median price of a single-family home in San Francisco rose to yet another all-time high by quarter in Q1 of 2018, according to a report released Wednesday by Paragon Real Estate economist Patrick Carlisle, this time hitting $1.61 million.

If accurate, this figure means that the price of a San Francisco house has nearly doubled just since 2013 and soared more than 23.8 percent since Q1 of 2017, when Paragon calculated a median of $1.3 million.

For comparison, here’s how price year-over-year prices in the first quarter breakdown for the past five years:

• 2017: $1.3 million, down 0.76 percent
• 2016: $1.31 million, up 19 percent
• 2015: $1.1 million, up 13.28 percent
• 2014: $971,000, up 14.23 percent
• 2013: $850,000, up 27.8 percent

While this year-over-year spike is not the largest in recent memory, it’s still a disconcertingly big jump, and the ongoing pile-up of new all-time highs remains as flagrant as ever.

In fact, if you isolate the figures from February, the situation looks even more dire. But Carlisle cautions readers that focusing only on that short-term data is potentially misleading:

We are not enthusiastic about monthly median price movements since they tend to bounce around without great meaningfulness due to a number of factors and sales volumes are very low in the first 2 months of the year, but for what it is worth the SF median house price soared to a new high in February 2018 to $1,715,000. (100 sales across 70-odd neighborhoods, reported to MLS by 3/7/18—late reported sales may affect this price.)

Note that the report also records a median SF condo price of more than $1.17 million, up 4.5 percent year over year. Back in 2013 the price was about $850,000, but it’s risen by less than $100,000 since Q1 of 2015.

Carlisle cites all sales reported to MLS for the first three months of 2018. It should be noted that the data does not reflect homes sold in non-public deals off the open market.

The California Association of Realtors has not yet released its own estimates for the full first quarter, but CAR figures from January and February mirror Paragon’s data, recording a median single-family home price of $1.33 million and $1.73 million for those two months, respectively, in San Francisco County.

That’s roughly three times the statewide median during the same period and the highest for any California county except perhaps San Mateo, which registered a slightly higher average than SF in January but also a slightly lower price in February.

For the curious, the median price of a single family SF home on Redfin right now is $1.68 million. On Zillow it’s $1.59 million, and on Trulia about $1.5 million.

Since these sites do not include every home listed in the city right now, and since prices today don’t necessarily reflect those from the previous three months, those figures don’t necessarily compare to those in Q1 reports.

• Q1 San Francsico 2018 [Paragon]
• County Sales Activity, 2018 [CAR]
• San Francisco Listings, Redfin
• San Francisco Listings, Zillow
• San Francisco Listings, Trulia

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/5/17201888/san-francisco-median-home-house-price-average-2018

San Francisco home buyers paid record prices for standalone houses in the first three months of this year.

The median house price hit an all-time record of $1.6 million in the first quarter, a 24% jump from last year, when the median home sold for $1.3 million, according to Paragon Real Estate Group, which put out a brief report Wednesday on the record figure.

More: Check Out San Francisco’s Latest Wave of Condo Development

The second quarter is likely to set another record since the Bay Area typically sees price metrics increase from the first to second quarters of the year, wrote Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst for the brokerage and author of the report.

“Houses have become the scarce commodity in San Francisco,” he wrote.

Condo prices in the city have had a less dramatic price run in recent years due to a boom in new apartment stock from developers.

The median condo price was $1.176 million in the first quarter of the year, a 4.6% increase over this time last year, but a slight dip from the end of 2017. In the fourth quarter of last year, the median condo price peaked at $1.185 million, according to Paragon, which bases its data on sales recorded in the city’s multiple listing service.

More: Bay Area Luxury Sales Double Despite Market Uncertainties

“Virtually every market segment in the city is currently experiencing a feverish high-demand, very-low-supply dynamic,” Mr. Carlisle wrote.

Impending increases in mortgage rates have had little effect on dampening consumer demand so far. And neither has stock market volatility in recent weeks, he said. He noted, though, that it may still be too soon to tell the longer term effects.

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Article source: https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/93362-san-francisco-house-prices-hit-new-peaks-in-first-quarter

New residents to the Bay Area are earning far more than the people they’re chasing out, a new report says, pushing up home prices and highlighting the gap between owners and renters in Silicon Valley.

Lower income workers moving out of the Bay Area were being replaced by younger workers making about $12,640 more annually from 2005 to 2016, according to a national study released Wednesday by BuildZoom. The Bay Area income gap has accelerated  from 2010 to 2016, with the average newcomer out-earning the typical former resident by about $18,700.

“In the Bay Area, you have a tremendous demand for housing,” said Issi Romem, BuildZoom chief economist and author of the study. High housing prices, he said, make it almost impossible for many families to put down roots and push them away from the region.

Bay Area newcomers had a median annual household income of about $70,000, while those leaving had a household income of $57,400, according to the study. About 60 percent of the newcomers had at least a four-year college degree, while about 50 percent of the outgoing residents had that level of education.

The Bay Area represents the extreme edge of a national trend: higher paid and educated professionals moving to large, coastal cities like San Francisco and New York, while lower paid workers are moving toward less expensive metro areas, the report found. This migration has driven up housing prices in coastal cities, while others in the Rust Belt have seen home prices drop.

Romem said the findings reveal a fundamental shift from the 1970s, when suburban development flourished to accommodate new residents.

The soaring price of Bay Area real estate today deters lower paid workers from moving to the region, he said. Romem also noted that residents with above-average incomes for the region still find it difficult to save enough for a down payment.

The median sale price for a single-family home in prime Bay Area counties has climbed for nearly six years. The median  price for a home in Santa Clara County in February was $1.3 million, in Alameda County $750,000, in San Mateo County $1.45 million and San Francisco $1.5 million, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic.

Real estate agents say even well-paid tech employees moving from other states struggle to find satisfactory housing. Many compromise on size for location, and pay a lot more than they expected.

Michi Olson, a relocation specialist with Alain Pinel Realtors, has handled employee moves for several major tech, biotech and social media companies in Silicon Valley. She helps families of tech engineers and executives moving to the Bay Area get through sticker shock by selling a lifestyle — beautiful weather, outdoor activities and Northern California culture — rather than properties.

Many new arrivals are trading vast homes in other states for less than half the space in a Silicon Valley house. “We’re in a very blessed area,” Olson said, but added “that’s really, really tough for first-time home buyers.”

In a competitive fight for top tech talent, companies will extend generous relocation packages for key employees, she said. Some offer up to $15,000 a month to cover rental housing, a big salary boost and assistance in financing a new home, she said.

Still, some former residents have found satisfaction outside of the Bay Area.

Jim DeStefano, 71, left San Jose in November and found another sunny climate — Florida. The former medical technologist retired, sold his home for $1 million and moved with his wife to Fort Myers.

Downsizing from a 4 bedrooms to 2 bedrooms has been great, he said. The couple’s new home cost just one-quarter of the proceeds from their California home.

DeStefano felt Florida was a better place to retire. “San Jose is a great place if you’re in your 20s and 30s,” he said. He could have waited for the housing market to drive up prices a bit more, but he felt the time was right to leave.

His new Florida house is sturdy enough to endure hurricane season, and he likes having a nature preserve — complete with alligators, deer and bobcats — in his backyard. “It’s a much quieter  lifestyle.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/04/bay-area-trend-low-earners-move-out-high-earners-move-in/

Denver real estate is a bargain…at least if you are coming from San Francisco.

Pilot John R. Tennyson late last year moved from San Francisco to Denver.

Tennyson, a pilot with Southwest Airlines, brings a mile-high perspective to the Mile High city’s real estate, which has never been more expensive.

In Denver, Tennyson was able to buy a brand-new townhome in a mixed-use development called Sloans, just south of Sloan’s Lake, for far less than what he was paying in rent for a small apartment in the trendy Mission Bay neighborhood in San Francisco.

In other words, Tennyson is enjoying whatever the opposite of “sticker shock” is, as far as real estate.

“It’s all relative,” said the 38-year-old Tennyson, who moved back to Denver last fall and moved into a townhome at the Perry Row Sloans community just before Christmas. He previously had lived in the Denver area when he was a pilot for United Express, before joining Southwest.

“My wife and I really missed living in Denver, and you get so much of a bigger bang for your buck in Denver than in the Bay Area,” Tennyson said. Tennyson is not alone in escaping the Bay Area in search of more affordable housing, both rental and for-sale. Almost 24,000 people in 2016 and 2017 fled the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In San Francisco, he and his wife, signed a lease in 2015 for an 850-square-foot, one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the Venue apartment complex.

Guess what they paid per month?

Here’s a hint.

“It’s the definition of unbelievable. It was even unbelievable to me,” Tennyson said.

If you guessed $4,000, you nailed it.

Their rent crept up every year, and last year they tried to time their lease payment to coincide when they could move into their home at Perry Row.

“We couldn’t make it work, so we went on a month-to-month lease and were paying $5,000 each month,” he said.

Finally, they had enough of that, so they moved to Denver a few months early and leased an apartment at the Verve in the LoDo area of downtown for about $1,500 a month.

When their townhome was ready, they paid $624,000 for a four-story, three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit with about 1,900 sf and a rooftop deck at Perry Row.

“Our monthly mortgage payment is about $3,400, so we are paying substantially less for a home that is about 2.5 times the size of what we were renting in San Francisco,” Tennyson said.

A similar-sized townhome in San Francisco would “cost at least $2.5 million,” he estimated.

Other than real estate prices, San Francisco, especially the Mission Bay neighborhood, has a lot going for it, he said.

“In Mission Bay, we were literally blocks from the ATT Stadium, where the San Francisco Giants play, and a new University of San Francisco hospital. And they are building the new stadium for the Warriors basketball team in Mission Bay.”

Living in Sloans, “I get the same kind of vibe” that he got from Mission.

“Our mother-in-law was visiting recently and we took her to a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse,” where you can order a meal, craft beer and a cocktail while watching a film.

“And they’re building that Lakehouse condo tower by us, which will be a really nice addition, and it is my understanding the ground-floor space is zoned commercial, so we will be seeing even more restaurants and coffee shops here,” he said.

It seemed appropriate to ask a pilot a question from a 30,000-foot perspective, so I asked Tennyson if he thought Amazon should pick Denver for its second headquarters.

“Absolutely,” Tennyson said. “Denver, with its great weather, is in the central part of the country and is in the center of this up-and-coming tech market.

“Not to sound cliché, but Denver is a little like a young San Francisco, if you will. I grew up in Silicon Valley (in Palo Alto), and I can tell you if Amazon chooses Denver, it will be great for property values for people who already own homes here.”

His wife works at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, “which is kind of ironic, considering that Sloans is built on the old St. Anthony Hospital site in Denver,” he said.

That also brings home a personal reason why he asked Southwest Airlines to transfer him to Denver.

“In San Francisco, renting an apartment was so expensive, we couldn’t afford to start a family.”

That can change, he said, now that most of their money isn’t going to rent.

Article source: https://crej.com/news/pilot-trades-s-f-for-denver/

The well-known San Andreas Fault is just one of the seven “significant fault zones” the US Geological Survey cites in the Bay Area. The others are the Calaveras, Concord-Green Valley, Greenville, Hayward, Rodgers Creek, and San Gregorio Faults.

People who live in the area experience small earthquakes and shakes all the time. Just this week, there has been a 2.9 and a 3.0-sized shake in Aromas, California, about an hour and 40 minutes south of the city.

Article source: http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-bay-area-nightmare-according-to-science-2018-4