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As the Bay Area’s real estate market appears to slow, Solano County continues to outpace the pack, according to new industry data.

The median price of a home sold in Solano County in August was up 13.4 percent compared to a year ago — the Bay Area’s only double-digit increase, CoreLogic’s latest figures show. The next highest increase was Sonoma County’s 9.8 percent.

The median price for homes sold in August compared to July was only up 2.7 percent, but it’s one of only two areas that weren’t in the negative. The other was Sonoma, which was up 4.4 percent. Also, at 15.4 percent, Solano had the highest percentage increase in the number of homes sold, with San Mateo second at 14.3 percent.

CoreLogic’s new data shows a total of 8,374 new and resale houses and condominiums sold in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma counties in August, up 8.3 percent compared to July and 3.2 percent compared to a year ago.

Since 1988, the Bay Area average change in sales between July and August has been a gain of 2.2 percent, and August 2016 was the first month since March to post a year-over-year increase in sales.

The Vallejo-Fairfield Metropolitan Statistical Area has bucked this trend all along, however.

“San Francisco Bay Area home sales perked up a bit in August, rising slightly above a year earlier for the first time since March of this year,” CoreLogic research analyst Andrew LePage said. “Job growth, low interest rates, household formation and other factors helped drive sales. It’s very likely that August 2016 sales also got a boost from timing: This July had five weekends and fewer business days than usual, probably resulting in a significant number of transactions being recorded in August rather than July.”

The median price paid for all homes sold in the San Francisco Bay Area in August 2016 was $675,000, falling for the second consecutive month since hitting an all-time high of $710,000 in June. The median sale price was down 2.9 percent month over month from July and up 5.2 percent compared to a year ago. The median price of a home sold in Solano County rose to $385,000 from $339,500, still the lowest prices in the Bay Area.

Adjusting for inflation, the San Francisco Bay Area’s median sale price in August remained about 15 percent below its June 2006 peak, CoreLogic officials said.

“The region’s median sale price has risen on a year-over-year basis for nearly four and a half years, and while those gains were consistently double-digit — as high as 33 percent — between mid-2012 and mid-2014, they have since been single-digit and fairly steady, averaging about 7 percent over the past two years,” LePage said. “In July and August, those year-over-year gains dropped to around 5 percent. Given seasonal and other forces, including affordability constraints, it’s possible that the Bay Area’s median sale price hit its peak for 2016 in June when it was $710,000, the region’s all-time high. Historically, the region’s median sale price has most often peaked in one of the summer months or in November or December. Last year, for example, the peak median — $660,000 — was reached in June.

Contact Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at (707) 553-6824.

Article source: http://www.timesheraldonline.com/article/NH/20160923/NEWS/160929864

For San Francisco Bay Area residents long accustomed to skyrocketing rents and real estate prices, there’s some relief on the horizon.

According to Trulia Chief Economist Ralph McLaughlin, San Francisco Bay Area rents and real estate prices are cooling off, down from 15%-17% growth year-over-year to 5%-6% — a trend McLaughlin expects to continue for at least the next two to three years.

That’s due to an overall increase in the number of homes and apartments on the market, which keeps prices from rising. The Dallas, Texas-based housing research firm Axiometrics estimates 12,300 new rental units will glut the Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose this year, up from nearly 7,000 units in 2015 and 6,700 units in 2014.

As a result, landlords from San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, where Airbnb, Pinterest and Yelp (YELP) are located, all the way to Cupertino, which is home to Apple (AAPL), are doling out tantalizing incentives to land tenants, such as four to six weeks free rent, discounts to tech workers, and even free bikes.

The other reason for the Bay Area’s cooling rents and real estate prices? “Peak unaffordability,” as McLaughlin calls it.

“Your average buyer can’t afford a home,” McLaughlin explained. “As buyers pull back because of price-induced reasons, there is less competition for homes, and so price growth moderates.”

While single-digit growth in any other part of the US would still be viewed as a significant uptick, it’s actually a significant downward trend in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area remains the “least affordable area” in the US to live, with median home prices in San Francisco proper fetching $1.15 million and median rents hovering around $4,500 a month for all apartments, according to Trulia, which is owned by online real-estate database company Zillow (Z).

“If you look over the last 30 years at the largest markets in the US and you look at prices, the two markets that have seen the biggest increases over the last 30 years have been San Francisco and San Jose,” McLaughlin told Yahoo Finance. “If you were a homeowner, and if you bought the median home in San Francisco in 1986, and you just finished paying off your mortgage, you would have gained about $900,000 in value. Similarly in San Jose, you would have gained $750,000 in value.”

That property growth sounds like even more when compared to what McLaughlin calls “run of the mill” markets, such as Fort Worth, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; or St. Louis, Mo., or even places like Chicago, Ill.

“If you bought a home in any one of those places in 1986, and you just paid it off, you’d only have gained about $50,000 or $55,000,” he added.

In addition to San Francisco, McLaughlin is also seeing, to a lesser degree, cooling rents and home prices in markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Denver.

Still, San Francisco remains rather unique in its exorbitant pricing, largely driven by the latest tech boom and an influx of tech workers that easily command six-figure salaries.

“You wouldn’t be incorrect to say the [San Francisco Bay] area  is ‘weird,’” he added. “San Francisco alone has gained more for buying a median-priced home than the 10 slowest-growing markets in the last 30 years combined. Thirty years ago, it was slightly more expensive than the rest of the country. Now it’s a lot more expensive. So we’ve really seen the Bay Area move and become further outliers than they were just a few years ago.”

JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.  

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Article source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trulia-economist-san-francisco-real-estate-cooling-132201506.html

SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) — Could it be the break Bay area homebuyers have been waiting for? New numbers show home sales are actually slowing.

Santa Clara County Realtors Association President Trisha Motter said, “We’re not seeing the bidding frenzies or paying as much over list price as we were before.”

It’s a sign that the Bay Area’s once red-hot housing market has cooled.

For instance, a house in South San Jose has been up for sale for three months and counting, something that would have been unimaginable a year ago.

Motter said, “The market has slowed down. Houses are staying on the market longer — 29 days now for single-family, resale homes. So, it’s taking longer now to get that right buyer through that door.”

She says housing prices are nearly flat — up only a modest 1.8 percent in August compared to the same time last year — while overall sales are down.

All of that adds up, she says, to a subtle shift from a seller’s to a buyer’s market.

“Buyers are willing to wait a little bit for that right property to come along. And they don’t want to get caught in a bidding war which is fantastic for those looking to take advantage of the marketplace right now,” Motter said.

Motter is in process of selling a nearly identical home just across the street from the home that has been sitting on the market for months. She says the combination of the right price and a tasteful staging helped her snag a buyer in just two weeks.

“Before you could put your home on the market with no preparation and it would move quickly. Now, buyers are taking it a little bit slower. They have options,” Motter said.

In Santa Clara County, homes sat on the market 29 days, on average, in August. Last year, it was just 23 days.

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/09/21/bay-area-housing-market-appears-to-be-cooling-off/

The median sale price for Bay area homes fell in August to $675,000. It was the second consecutive month of price declines across the nine counties since the median hit an all-time high of $710,000 in June.

The price for all homes — single-family homes, condos, townhouses — fell 2.9 percent from $695,000 in July. On a year-over-year basis, however, the median was up 5.2 percent from $641,750 in August 2015.

“The region’s median sale price has risen on a year-over-year basis for nearly four and a half years, and while those gains were consistently double-digit — as high as 33 percent — between mid-2012 and mid-2014, they have since been single-digit and fairly steady, averaging about seven percent over the past two years,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst for the CoreLogic real estate information service, which released the latest numbers.

“In July and August, those year-over-year gains dropped to around 5 percent,” he continued in a statement. “Given seasonal and other forces, including affordability constraints, it’s possible that the Bay Area’s median sale price hit its peak for 2016 in June when it was $710,000, the region’s all-time high.”

According to CoreLogic, 8,374 homes sold in August in the region’s nine counties — up 8.3 percent from July 2016 and up 3.2 percent from August 2015. The sales uptick reversed a months-long decline in sales.

“San Francisco Bay Area home sales perked up a bit in August, rising slightly above a year earlier for the first time since March of this year,” said LePage. “Job growth, low interest rates, household formation and other factors helped drive sales.”

In Santa Clara County, the median price rose year-over-year by 2.3 percent from $811,000 to $830,000. In San Mateo County, the rise was nine percent from $975,000 to $1,062,500.

In Alameda County, the median was up 6.4 percent year-over-year, from $639,000 to $680,000. In Contra Costa County, the increase was more marginal — up 1.3 percent from $502,500 to $509,000.

Article source: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20160920/BUSINESS/160929948

For San Francisco Bay Area residents long accustomed to skyrocketing rents and real estate prices, there’s some relief on the horizon.

According to Trulia Chief Economist Ralph McLaughlin, San Francisco Bay Area rents and real estate prices are cooling off, down from 15%-17% growth year-over-year to 5%-6% — a trend McLaughlin expects to continue for at least the next two to three years.

That’s due to an overall increase in the number of homes and apartments on the market, which keeps prices from rising. The Dallas, Texas-based housing research firm Axiometrics estimates 12,300 new rental units will glut the Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose this year, up from nearly 7,000 units in 2015 and 6,700 units in 2014.

As a result, landlords from San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, where Airbnb, Pinterest and Yelp (YELP) are located, all the way to Cupertino, which is home to Apple (AAPL), are doling out tantalizing incentives to land tenants, such as four to six weeks free rent, discounts to tech workers, and even free bikes.

The other reason for the Bay Area’s cooling rents and real estate prices? “Peak unaffordability,” as McLaughlin calls it.

“Your average buyer can’t afford a home,” McLaughlin explained. “As buyers pull back because of price-induced reasons, there is less competition for homes, and so price growth moderates.”

While single-digit growth in any other part of the US would still be viewed as a significant uptick, it’s actually a significant downward trend in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area remains the “least affordable area” in the US to live, with median home prices in San Francisco proper fetching $1.15 million and median rents hovering around $4,500 a month for all apartments, according to Trulia, which is owned by online real-estate database company Zillow (Z).

“If you look over the last 30 years at the largest markets in the US and you look at prices, the two markets that have seen the biggest increases over the last 30 years have been San Francisco and San Jose,” McLaughlin told Yahoo Finance. “If you were a homeowner, and if you bought the median home in San Francisco in 1986, and you just finished paying off your mortgage, you would have gained about $900,000 in value. Similarly in San Jose, you would have gained $750,000 in value.”

That property growth sounds like even more when compared to what McLaughlin calls “run of the mill” markets, such as Fort Worth, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; or St. Louis, Mo., or even places like Chicago, Ill.

“If you bought a home in any one of those places in 1986, and you just paid it off, you’d only have gained about $50,000 or $55,000,” he added.

In addition to San Francisco, McLaughlin is also seeing, to a lesser degree, cooling rents and home prices in markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Denver.

Still, San Francisco remains rather unique in its exorbitant pricing, largely driven by the latest tech boom and an influx of tech workers that easily command six-figure salaries.

“You wouldn’t be incorrect to say the [San Francisco Bay] area  is ‘weird,’” he added. “San Francisco alone has gained more for buying a median-priced home than the 10 slowest-growing markets in the last 30 years combined. Thirty years ago, it was slightly more expensive than the rest of the country. Now it’s a lot more expensive. So we’ve really seen the Bay Area move and become further outliers than they were just a few years ago.”

JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.  

More from JP Mangalindan:

Facebook exec hints at ‘next logical step’ for Messenger

Box CEO: ‘Investors have two very different perspectives on our business’

Apple isn’t the only giant US company being scrutinized for its overseas taxes

‘You’re not the shooter, are you?!” — My night at LAX

Leaks about the iPhone 7 have one analyst skeptical about Apple sales

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/trulia-economist-san-francisco-real-estate-cooling-132201506.html