New peak for San Francisco luxury home sales

Paragon has just released its San Francisco Autumn Real Estate Market Dynamics report, and it’s very worth the read. First off, the San Francisco market has seen its share of cooling since the overheated feeding frenzy in the first half of 2014. Basically, this means that we’re seeing more rational levels of competition between buyers for new listings – if a home may have received five to 10 offers earlier in the year, it’s now getting maybe one or two.

Moreover, values in many of the neighborhoods in the city have plateaued or even gone down after the big spike in spring. The one exception to this rule was the districts with the most affordable housing prices (think under $1.2 million), where prices still rose. We also saw the number of expired and withdrawn listings take an 18 percent leap from August through October as compared to the same time last year.

Rest assured, however, that the autumn market is still going strong. It’s just not insane. We’re seeing a higher number of single-family house and condo sales than last year at this time, and that doesn’t include the huge number of high-end, new-development condos going into contract. Most listings in the city are selling quickly for well over asking, with luxury home sales hitting record numbers.

While the multi-unit building market declined dramatically, that was due to fears about Prop G, which got shot down at the ballot box earlier this month. Meanwhile, buyers in this market have a large inventory of 2-4 unit buildings from which to choose.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we’ll continue our analysis of the report.

Dreaming of San Francisco? Cece Blase offers local advice to San Francisco buyers, sellers and owners– and feeds the dreams of those who wish they could live in Tony Bennett’s ‘City by the Bay.’ Call 415-577-0809 or email cblase@paragon-re.com. www.ceceblase.com