Weekly Sales Report

Welcome to the first Weekly Sales Report of the year! The consensus in the office reflects what we have been reporting, which is that the inventory is low and our buyers are waiting on the sidelines ready to pounce. Everybody was disappointed by the size of yesterday's Broker's Tour; they had hoped to see more of a spike in activity this first week of the year. Although there weren't as many new listings this week, there were a lot of announcements of things to come; listings that are being prepared for sale but won't be released until the end of the week. All you need in this market is a little bit of patience, and you will win in the end.

The report, in terms of number of offers on each property, remains pretty steady from the last few in December. Over 80% of the properties that had offers accepted this week were single offer situations. The other 20% brought in multiple offers. There were three or four offers on each of those. It is tough for those buyers who do find themselves in a competitive situation in this market. They feel as if they are being cheated..."Isn't the market slow right now?" or "I thought prices were soft!" Both of those statements are true some of the time, but certainly not all of the time.

You may have seen this before..."Location, Location, Location"! Many times, just being in the right spot is enough for a house to attract major activity. One of the homes that did receive multiple offers this week was this "tear down" in Noe Valley.I don't think the truck is included. This property is a 576 square foot cottage located at 26th Street and Sanchez in Noe Valley which is a nice block. It is also zoned RH2 which means that you can build two residential units. The lot is longer than average, which many Noe Valley lots are. An average San Francisco lot is 25ft by 100ft. This one in particular is 25ft by 114ft. The house (or I should say the lot) was listed at $950,000! Take a moment and think about that...$950,000! It was on the market for just under two weeks when they received three offers. It undoubtedly will sell for over the asking price; we will keep you posted.

As for the properties that have sold, or closed this week, the list was quite long. It is definitely a good start for the year. Thirty percent of the sales closed under asking price, 50% closed at the asking price, and the remaining 20% did go over the asking price. The largest overbid was only 4%, and again it was a contractor's special. (Is that the same truck?) This was in Bernal Heights; it was also a short sale. A short sale is when the owner owes more on the property than it is worth. It usually involves negotiations with the lenders to get them to agree to a settled amount on the loans.