Weekly Sales Report

It's Wednesday again and as promised I will conduct our mini market study based on Coldwell Banker's sales meeting. As I mentioned in the last report, the size of our office is large enough and covers all of San Francisco, thus giving us a clear idea of what is happening in the market as a whole. Today I walked away from the meeting with one word going through my mind...INVENTORY! Aside from Tuesday Tours, where all of the properties in San Francisco are opened up for the agents to see, Coldwell Banker has another tour on Wednesdays after the meeting for just our agents to see our office's new inventory. On average, this tour probably consist of about eight to ten properties. Today there were seventeen properties on tour. That means one office in San Francisco brought seventeen new listings onto the market this week alone. I took a look at the tour for the Lombard Street office. They usually have a smaller tour than our average, but today they came in strong with thirteen new listings! These numbers may not sound huge to you, but consider all of the real estate offices in San Francisco and the numbers multiply quickly.

Buyers Market

Did you ever wonder why the market in San Francisco is so competitive? It really boils down to a very simple supply and demand concept. In the last few years, demand has outweighed supply, thus keeping prices going up and creating a seller's market. If there is only one house for sale in the neighborhood, but twenty people want that house in that neighborhood, a bidding war begins and the seller is in complete control. On the other hand, if ten homes hit the market at the same time, the demand for each home is lessened exponentially thus giving the buyers the upper hand. Even recently as the market has softened, we were seeing a fairly even playing field for buyers and sellers. If we keep seeing large numbers of properties hit the market each week, we will certainly be on the road to a buyers market. What that means is that the buyer has more room to negotiate on price and terms rather than having to overbid and purchase a home as is.

Statistics

Opened Escrows: 16 (sales now pending)
Closed Escrows: 31 (solds; 16 over asking price, 7 under, 8 sold at asking price)

Clearly the majority sold over asking which tells us we are not quite in a Buyer's Market yet, but inventory is growing rapidly so if you are thinking of buying...get out there, the scales just may tip in your favor! Give us a call!