Weekly Sales Report

It is time for a market update! The general consensus at our weekly sales meeting this morning was that San Francisco is now in a balanced market. That is what we have been reporting; it's just good to know that everyone agrees. In a balanced market, it really becomes property specific as to who holds the cards.

Another nice thing to report is that interest rates seemed to have gone down a bit. This morning a thirty year fixed jumbo loan was at 7% and in some places a bit lower at 6.875%. The gap between conforming and jumbo loans is closing, and once the dust settles we will probably see a half percent difference between jumbo and conforming instead of the full percent difference we have had lately. The reason for that difference has been because the jumbo loans are not guaranteed a buyer on the secondary market as conforming loans are with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. This makes the jumbo loans riskier for the lenders; thus they have been more expensive since the August credit crisis. As mentioned before, the dust will settle and we will see the pricing fall into place. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to meet again next Wednesday; let's hope for another decrease!

Statistics

There were 12 opened escrows this week. Six were multiple offer situations; that brings the multiple offers back up to 50% of all sales. The largest number of offers was received by the fixer featured in Beautiful Grand Edwardian on Monday, October 8th. They received 12 offers and the price went more than 10% over asking. The runner up was a two bedroom condominium in Potrero Hill listed at $699,000. They received 8 offers. The final price will be posted when it closes.

There were 8 closed escrows reported this week, six of which sold over the asking price. One sold under and the other sold at asking price. Not one of the properties that sold over asking went more than 5% over. It is intersting to note that even in multiple offer situations we are still not seeing a lot of the 20% over asking that we saw in past years. This is a good think to note for the sellers out there who are trying to price their homes. Stay closer to the range you are willing to accept. One of the properties that did sell at 5% over the asking price is this beautiful French Country Forest Hill home. The asking price was $1,295,000 and it sold for $1,361,000. It is a two bedroom two and a half bath home with over 2000 square feet of living space. I'm sure it helped that it had this wonderful garden designed by our very own Anja van Ditmarsch!