Just when I thought the market was slowing down and sugar plums were dancing in my head, my buyers decided to write offers. The saying goes that making offers as the holiday approaches is a good time since if a property is on the market at this time of year, the seller must be desperate and he’ll take what he can get. But, whoever said that didn’t count on the resilient SF market that is like an Energizer Bunny. In the last 30 days, three couples who I represent made offers on three different properties – an almost fixer in Bernal Heights, a two bedroom condo in Eureka Valley and a cottage in Corona Heights. The fixer in Bernal had 28 disclosures out and received 20 offers. My clients were at the top tier of the offers but did not prevail. The top floor Eureka Valley two bedroom condo had 14 disclosures out and received 5 offers. My clients prevailed on this one! And finally, the sweet cottage in Corona Heights had 50 disclosures out and received 22 offers. My clients prevailed on this one, too, and beat out an all cash offer that was higher than their offer we were told by the listing agent. Two out of three isn’t too bad but frankly, I didn’t quite expect this type of competition coming into the holidays.
On the listing side, a condo I just brought on the market which had its first open house this past Sunday has received a fair amount of interest. I’ve had 6 disclosure package requests and have had quite a few appointments. It seems like the market picked back up a bit recently and colleagues with whom I spoke agreed. Why? There are still a lot of anxious buyers out there who would like to get into the market before interest rates rise and the inventory right now is still very limited. Also, some neighborhoods like the ones my clients desire seem to get more interest than others. At least one of each of these three couples works in the tech industry and these three neighborhoods with their proximity to tech shuttles and other public transportation as well as proximity to Silicon Valley have made the properties in these areas more sought after. That being said, there are still price reductions for sellers who are not realistic about the value of their properties.
What does the future hold is the question everyone is asking. At an Economic Forecast Summit held by Pacific Union recently, the bottom line prediction for San Francisco is a normalizing of the market for the next three years with an aggregate increase in value of 10% – not 10% a year as someone asked me but 10% over the next three years vs. the 15% increase we experienced in the last year in property values in SF. The good news is that it looks like values will continue to increase, just not as rapidly as they have been.
If you are a buyer interested in getting into the market before interest rates go up or if you are a seller interested in selling before the market levels off, give me a call, I’d be happy to help!
