Happy New Year! The number one thing that people are asking me these days is this: What do you think is happening with the SF real estate market?
I wish there was an easy answer. All I can tell you is what one of the pros says and my personal experience. According to Carol Radoni, a real estate expert, “2016 is going to be a chaotic, choppy, sloppy year.” Translating this, she means that it will be an up and down market. She supports this opinion based on China’s slowdown in growth, the decline in oil prices, and the layoffs by a number of large companies, like Walmart among other things. In San Francisco, she thinks that there will be two markets – one for desirable and one for undesirable properties. Desirable properties will still have multiple offers but not as many and will still sell over their asking price; undesirable properties will stay on the market longer and be slow to sell.
In my experience, things started a bit slowly this year (as to be expected after the holidays) but sped up as the month went on. In the last week, I went into contract for a single seller and for a buyer couple. I am now in two escrows – one for my condo listing (its view pictured above) that was on the market for 36 days when it went into contract. The other was for an”off market” Glen Park home for buyers which was announced by an agent in my office at our recent sales meeting. My buyer couple had already made several unsuccessful offers and were thrilled to get into contract on this home. Each of these properties received two offers. But had the home been on the market, it would have received quite a number of offers I imagine as it is in very good condition, has been renovated, is in a nice location and was well priced. This tells me that Carol Radoni just may be right in her prediction. There is still buyer demand and inventory is still low so for desirable properties, there will be multiple offers and over asking prices.
