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The back half of the summer brings several defining moments each year: an almost imperceptible shortening of days, a desperate run on the last bottles of drugstore suntan lotion, and—in most years— a slowdown in the torrid pace of the peak home-buying season. But wait: What happened to that real estate slowdown, anyhow? Things are cooking along as if the hot season is just starting.

“We normally see the housing market begin to slow down in midsummer, but this year has been a different story,” says Javier Vivas, realtor.com®‘s manager of economic research. ”Homes are not only selling faster than last July, but also faster than last year’s peak months.”

The good news is that more homes hit the market in July for the third month in a row, according to a preliminary analysis of this month’s data by realtor.com. However, many of those 510,000 residences came with some pretty steep price tags, making it hard for first-time buyers to enter the fray. Those higher costs helped to bring the median home price up to $275,000 nationally.

Homes are now staying on the market for about 64 days. That’s four days more than last month, giving buyers a little more breathing room. But it’s a few days less than the same time last summer.

Furthermore, “home prices are also failing to show hints of the usual seasonal cool down and remain at stubborn highs,” Vivas says. “Mid- to lower-tier homes are flying off the shelves and … [are] being replaced by higher-priced, larger homes.”

Some cities made the nation’s hottest real estate markets list due to affordable prices. (The median home price in Detroit is just $35,000!) Others are simply places everyone seems to want to be. And some markets are appealing due to their proximity to pricier cities.

The tech explosion (drawing well-paid workers from all over the world competing for a limited supply of homes) and sky-high San Francisco Bay Area prices have led to Vallejo, CA, topping the hottest markets list—again. The Bay Area city was once better known for its abandoned shipyard, high crime rates, and 2008 bankruptcy than its real estate. But these days, the median home price is $385,000, according to realtor.com. And that’s cheap compared with its neighbors.

San Francisco is only about a 40-minute drive away—and yet its median home prices are $1,300,000. That’s nearly 237.7% more than Vallejo’s.

“There’s nothing really special about Vallejo that’s bringing people here other than the pricing,” says Realtor® Tim Garton of Re/Max Gold in Vallejo. “Our prices got so low compared to the rest of the Bay Area during the downturn. Now we’re coming back because … we’re a very affordable alternative.”

Rank (July)

20 Hottest Markets

Rank (June)

Rank Change

1

Vallejo, CA

1

0

2

Kennewick, WA

3

1

3

San Francisco, CA

2

-1

4

San Jose, CA

9

5

5

San Diego, CA

10

5

6

Stockton, CA

14

8

7

Columbus, OH

5

-2

8

Fort Wayne, IN

16

8

9

Sacramento, CA

4

-5

10

Detroit, MI

6

-4

11

Dallas, TX

11

0

12

Colorado Springs, CO

8

-4

13

Yuba City, CA

19

6

14

Fresno, CA

27

13

15

Waco, TX

12

-3

16

Modesto, CA

20

4

17

Denver, CO

18

-1

18

Ann Arbor, MI

22

4

19

Santa Cruz, CA

21

2

20

Santa Rosa, CA

17

-3

Article source: http://www.realtor.com/news/trends/americas-20-hottest-real-estate-markets-july-2017/

Bay Area home prices have continued their stratospheric surge, as the low housing supply combined with intense demand last month to further heat up the market.

The real estate business usually cools off in the summer, but this market is proving to be a pressure cooker. The median price of a single-family home in the region was $779,000, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier, the CoreLogic real estate information service reported Wednesday.

Prices in the eight counties for which June data were available have risen for 63 straight months. The median price hasn’t fallen since March 2012, and some homeowners are cashing out and leaving the region while buyers battle over scant offerings — and occasionally find a deal.

Alameda and Sonoma counties set new median price records in June of $838,000 and $612,000, respectively, while Santa Clara matched its previous peak of $1,100,000.

“In 27 years, I’ve never seen such sustained demand and appetite by buyers,” said Chris Trapani, CEO and founder of the Sereno Group. “To see prices escalating at this point in the summer is remarkable, in my view.”

Even with inventory sinking to historic lows, sales were up. They rose 9.9 percent across the region on a year-over-year basis. In Santa Clara County, they rose 7.3 percent, while Alameda County was up 7.1 percent and Contra Costa County rose 4.7 percent.

(CoreLogic’s June report does not include San Mateo County due to a glitch with data collection there.)

The increased activity suggests that the region is “quickly burning through its supply of homes for sale,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst for CoreLogic. “Inventory is down, so you’re just going through it at a faster pace.”

He noted that new home construction continues to lag — sales of new single-family homes, condos and townhomes were 35.6 percent below their June average of the last 30 years. If overall inventory levels tighten further in the months ahead, he said, “We then could see sales decline year-over-year — and not for any lack of demand, but for a lack of available homes.”

Given the competition, bids over the asking price are common, although agent Alex Seroff, of DeLeon Realty in Palo Alto, said the pricing strategy needs to be right to attract aggressive offers.

A home with a fair market value of $1.7 million or $1.8 million typically will list at $1.5 million, he said: “I need to get that level of excitement — from a lot of people making a lot of offers — to get the highest price, so I can leverage those offers against each other.”

The strategy worked out for his clients Jamie and Brooke Turner.

The Bay Area natives bought their 2,000-square-foot home in Mountain View’s Sylvan Park neighborhood for $960,000 in 2010.

Looking at Silicon Valley’s congested traffic and steadily rising prices, Jamie, a computer engineer, and Brooke, an ex-teacher who stays home with their three children, decided to sell and leave the area. They listed the home in May for $1.5 million, received 21 offers within a week and sold it for more than $1.9 million, earning nearly $1 million profit on their original purchase.

“It’s definitely a seller’s market,” Jamie said.

They closed the deal in June and moved this month to the Seattle area, where Jamie’s company has an office — and where the family’s new $2.3 million home covers 7,000 square feet on five acres.

In the East Bay, agent William Doerlich has watched as clients chase affordability to Vallejo in Solano County. Buyers are looking for a decent price and architecturally distinguished houses that “are unique, that have a certain feel. You can get that in Berkeley and Oakland, too. But you’ve got it in Vallejo at half the price point.”

His clients Henrique Bagulho and Katherine Du Tiel, professional photographers living in San Francisco, decided to look for an investment property in Vallejo. They stumbled onto a 1924 prairie-style cottage with a view of the Napa hills and decided they wanted to live in it.

The cottage listed for $379,900, drew four offers, and Bagulho and Du Tiel won out, bidding $410,500. They moved in earlier this month.

“Most people seem to think we’re nuts to move to Vallejo,” said Bagulho, “but San Francisco has become too desirable and lost a little bit of its charm. So we’ll probably be doubling our money” — they are about to sell their 1,500-square-foot home in San Francisco’s Miraloma Park — “and we’ll be living in nice quiet Vallejo, less of a hipster city. I like it. I will be able to bike to Napa.”

Sometimes a deal is found close to home, including in downtown and central San Jose, areas that haven’t always been magnets for buyers. “But with so little inventory, people are forced to be less picky,” said Sereno agent Roxy Laufer.

Her client Joy Osborne, a tech manager in Santa Clara, was ready to leave her Los Gatos condo after 11 years: “I didn’t have an outdoor space, and the laundry was downstairs. I was ready to be an adult again after too many years.”

Through the spring, Osborne, who grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was outbid on five homes in the South Bay. Then she came across a tiny yellow house with a bright red door and blue-green steps. Near San Jose’s Japantown, it listed for $665,000 and Osborne — one of eight bidders — got it for $702,000, with15 percent down.

Her new house is “like a beautiful little flower in the heart of the city,” she said. “The backyard is splendid, and it’s got fruit for days. It’s got grapefruit and lemon and peach and apricot, and I feel like I’m walking into my grandparents’ farm. I feel like, ‘Wow, this is special.’”

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/26/bay-area-real-estate-home-prices-leap-to-yet-another-record-high/

There are 4.9 million tech workers in the U.S. and 776,000 in Canada, accounting for 3.5 percent and 5.1 percent of total workers in each country, respectively, according to a recent CBRE report. This relatively small labor force has an outsized impact on North American real estate markets and the two national economies—and it’s growing. The number of tech talent workers has increased by 27 percent in the past five years, adding more than 1 million jobs to the U.S. economy at a pace more than three times the national average.

The report asserts that tech talent workers comprise 20 different occupations, including: software developers and programmers; computer support, database and systems; technology- and engineering-related; and computer and information system managers. These positions are highly concentrated within the services industry but are not limited to any one type of company or industry sector. Using this definition, a software developer who works for a logistics company is included in CBRE’s data.

Top 50 Tech Markets

The report, Scoring Tech Talent, is an analysis of labor market conditions for, as well as cost and quality of, highly skilled tech workers in the U.S. and Canada. The 50 largest markets were ranked according to their competitive advantages and appeal to tech employers and tech talent. The analysis also provides information about the quality of tech talent, their demographics and how tech talent growth patterns are impacting cities and real estate markets.

The report ranked the top three tech talent markets as the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and New York. Compared with the previous year, the Bay Area maintained its top score, while Seattle and New York each moved up one spot to second and third, while Washington, D.C. slipped to fourth. Supported by strong tech-centric universities, Atlanta rose four spots to fifth and Toronto rose six spots to sixth. Other large changes came from Denver and Newark—both rose six spots to 12th and 13th, respectively.

To make the rankings, CBRE analyzed 50 of the largest markets by number of tech talent professionals in the U.S. and Canada. The ranking uses 13 metrics to measure each market’s depth, vitality and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment.

Article source: https://www.cpexecutive.com/post/economy-watch-bay-area-a-top-market-for-tech-talent/

Amid the continuing housing crunch, pending home sales dropped across the Bay Area last month.

A California Association of Realtors report shows pending sales fell 0.6 percent throughout the region in June, compared with the same month a year earlier. Pending sales fell 10.4 percent in San Mateo County and 0.4 percent in Santa Clara County.

“Last week in Santa Clara County, we stood at roughly 35 percent fewer listings than we did last year at the same time,” said Chris Trapani, founder and CEO of the Sereno Group. “You look at that and say, `What is there even to sell?’ The fact that Santa Clara is off only one percent or less in units sold — that’s actually kind of remarkable, I think.”

Craig Gorman, past president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors, agreed: “The biggest reason why sales are down is because there’s just not enough inventory.”

For the week of July 10, he said, only 1,091 homes were on the market in the county.

“They’re still popping off the shelves if they’re priced right,” Gorman said.

San Francisco County bounced back from a double-digit decline in pending sales in May, and rose 22.2 percent in June.

To the north of the Bay Area, pending sales were down 6.5 percent in Sacramento.

To the south, they fell 15.7 percent in Santa Cruz.

Statewide, pending home sales slipped for the sixth month in a row, down 0.9 percent.

Region by region, however, the picture was more varied. Southern California sales were up 2.5 percent, and Central Valley sales rose 5.2 percent.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/24/pending-home-sales-fell-across-bay-area-and-state-in-june/

With its dwindling home supply, the Bay Area real estate market experienced an increase in home sales during the spring. Hellbent buyers snapped up whatever was available, resulting in a year-over-year increase in units sold.

Even so, when viewed historically, sales were tepid — there’s just not enough housing on the market to generate a real surge.

And now the spring sales increase has reversed, according to the latest report from the California Association of Realtors.

It shows pending sales decreasing 0.6 percent across the region in June. Breaking it down by county, sales dipped 0.4 percent year-over-year in Santa Clara County and 10.4 percent in San Mateo County. San Francisco County bounced back from last month’s double-digit sales decline, however, and rose 22.2 percent.

To the north of the Bay Area, pending sales were down 6.5 percent in Sacramento. To the south, they fell 15.7 percent in Santa Cruz.

Statewide, pending home sales slipped for the sixth month in a row, down 0.9 percent. Region by region, however, the picture was a bit more complicated. Southern California sales were up 2.5 percent, and Central Valley sales rose 5.2 percent.

You can read the report here.

The overall tail-off in sales might just mark the end of the busy spring season for real estate. Stay tuned to see what develops in future months.

And in the short-term, stay tuned for our story on the upcoming report from CoreLogic, the real estate information service. Due to land later this week, it will break down median sales and prices for June in each of the nine counties across the Bay Area.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/24/pending-home-sales-fell-across-bay-area-and-state-in-june/