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San Francisco Real Estate: 3rd Quarter Market Update

San Francisco Median Home Sales Prices
It’s not unusual for median prices to fall in the first and third quarters (affected by winter and summer holidays) and rise in the second and fourth quarters (prime spring and autumn selling seasons). This is what happened in this past third quarter and it typically has more to do with seasonal factors than changes in market values. One has to look at the longer term trend, not monthly or quarterly fluctuations, to determine what’s really happening in the market. For the last 6 quarters, the overall trend in home prices has been upward.

3rd Quarter Home Sales Snapshot
These statistics for the third quarter indicate a market that is still extraordinarily strong by any historical measure: 87% of home sales sold quickly without price reductions, at an average of almost 8% over asking price. It did cool down somewhat from our insanely frenzied spring season, but part of that is explained by the typical summer slowdown dynamic. How the market performs in the next two months will tell us a lot about whether the market is settling down, transitioning to a new phase or continuing to race along in high gear.

San Francisco Neighborhood Home Values
We’ve updated our home-value maps to reflect sales for the past 5 months: The city is reaching some very high points in median sales prices and average dollar per square foot values. This map is for San Francisco house values and this link goes to our new interactive map for both house and condo values:

Interactive SF House & Condo Value Map

Home Price Appreciation vs. Inflation since 1988
Inflation over the past 25 years has been relatively slow and steady, while home prices have gone up and down dramatically according to the market cycle. But since 1988, home value appreciation in the Bay Area has generally exceeded CPI inflation by a significant amount, which is good news for homeowners. If you’d like to read our complete report on home prices, inflation, leverage and home equity, you can find it here:

Homeownership as an Investment

SF Luxury Home Sales
One of the classic seasonal trends in real estate is the decline in the number of luxury home sales in the first and third quarters, because the higher end of the market has a greater tendency to check out for the holiday seasons. This is a major factor behind the typical decline in median sales prices during these periods, as referred to above. Though luxury property sales were far above recent years, this decline in unit sales occurred in this past quarter as well. If market conditions and seasonal trends hold true, we should see a big uptick in luxury home sales in the new quarter just begun.

Comparing Bay Area County Markets
In September, we completed a report comparing the different real estate markets in the counties around the San Francisco Bay Area. If you would like to read it in its entirety, you can find it here:

Bay Area Home Markets Report

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Inventory of Homes for Sale
September did see a spike in the number of home listings for sale in San Francisco, but not as big an increase as we had hoped for.

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Renting vs. Selling your Home

Depending on your circumstances, plans and current market conditions, renting one’s home instead of selling it may certainly be an option worth considering. Owning rental property may be a viable investment choice for you. However, there are additional factors to keep in mind as you make your decision.

1. In San Francisco, renters often reduce property value for the following reasons:

  • Rental properties rarely show as well as owner-occupied properties and renters often neglect basic upkeep and maintenance.
  • If your property is subject to SF rent control/eviction limitations – which most properties built before 1979 are – evicting tenants or paying them off to move without eviction in order to sell the home later may be prohibitively expensive, take long periods of time or even be impossible. (You should consult a landlord-tenant attorney.)
  • SF tenants under the rent control ordinance are now owed relocation fees upon eviction – thousands of dollars per tenant. Buyers will want to be compensated for that cost.
  • If it’s impossible to evict the tenants, then you have to show it while tenant occupied, which can bring up multiple issues pertaining to appearance, showings, open houses, and tenant resentment and lack of cooperation. It also makes it virtually impossible to perform any staging of the home to make the property show in its best possible light.
  • Many buyers don’t want to buy tenant occupied homes and those buyers willing to deal with the issue usually expect a significant discount on the price.

2. Managing a rental property and tenants can be a hassle—the calls about broken plumbing on Thanksgiving Day may not be something you wish to deal with. And if you hire a professional property manager, there will be a significant additional expense to deduct against the rental income.

3. If you are able to get the tenant to vacate the property prior to the listing period, a vacant house will have to be staged to show well. It costs money to stage an empty property and it costs money to keep the house vacant during the listing and sale period.

4. Renting for an extended period may affect the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion from capital gains tax for owner-occupied properties upon sale.

5. If you want to own rental property, you will typically get a better return on investment from multiple-unit properties than from single family dwellings.

6. You may need your proceeds of sale to purchase your new home.

Note: If you do decide you wish you rent out your home, Paragon has a very able rental department which specializes in this exact situation.

Anyone considering renting their home or evicting a tenant is strongly recommended
to consult with a qualified landlord-tenant attorney and the San Francisco Rent Board.
Speaking to an accountant about the financial ramifications is also recommended.
Paragon agents are not qualified to give advice on these issues.
 

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Fiesta On the Hill – October 20, 2013

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Fiesta on the Hill is a community based, high-profile and energetic Festival with an attendance of over 20,000 friends and neighbors from San Francisco’s Bernal Heights area, neighboring communities and the greater Bay Area. The event is in its 25th year and continues to grow and enhance the ethnic, cultural and economic diversity of the Bernal Heights District of San Francisco and surrounding neighborhoods.

Presented by the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, an organization devoted to community action, equity and justice in the Bernal Heights area, the 25th annual Fiesta is an alcohol free event that emphasizes the importance of well being to the vitality of the neighborhood. The event includes a petting zoo, pony rides, a pumpkin patch, non-profit booths, live music on two stages, great food and a great sense of healthy, inclusive community.

Sunday, October 20, 2013 from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST
Cortland Avenue from Bocana Avenue to Folsom Street, Bernal Heights, San Francisco
No admission fee

For more information go to www.sresproductions.com/fiestaonthehill.html

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Pros and Cons of Pocket Listings

Fair market value is that price a qualified, reasonably knowledgeable buyer will pay to a seller not under duress, after the property has been fully exposed to the market.
What was once an unusual way to market homes – outside of MLS – has become much more common. The question is: does this make sense for most sellers?

There are basically three reasons for trying to sell your home as what is variously called a pocket, off-market or off-MLS listing:

  1. Your highest priority and primary concern is confidentiality and privacy: you absolutely do not wish it to be public knowledge that you are selling your property.
  2. You don’t want to prepare your home for showings, have open houses or really make any effort at all. Perhaps you don’t even need to sell, but if someone is willing to pay you a certain price that you’ve already decided on, taking the property as-is, then you will be completely satisfied selling at that price.
  3. You believe that marketing and selling your home this way achieves the highest sales price, because buyers who do learn of it believe they’re getting a special inside shot at buying and step up aggressively.

Those are all valid reasons, but you should be aware of the potential trade-off you’re making.

One thing has become clear in the current red-hot market: it is not uncommon for one, specific buyer to be willing to pay significantly more than anyone else when they’re competing with other buyers. The reason behind comprehensive marketing, including listing the property in the Multiple Listing Service – which is probably the single best way of getting the word out to buyers and their agents – is firstly, to reach that highest paying buyer (in the effort to reach every possible buyer), and secondly, to orchestrate as big a competitive bidding situation as possible – or at least the fear of impending competition in that buyer’s mind. This typically brings about the best result for the seller.

Without comprehensive marketing, it is much less likely that this single buyer will hear of your home being for sale in the first place, as well as being much less likely that a dynamic competitive bidding situation can be orchestrated. In either or both of those cases, it is quite possible you will sell your home for less, and perhaps significantly less, than you could have.

If you do sell your home “off-MLS” in this market, it’s quite conceivable that you’ll find a buyer who will pay what appears to be a very good price. But there is simply no way to tell if you are getting the best price achievable, or even, by definition, current fair market value. This is especially true in a rapidly appreciating market. Might there have been somebody else, who, if they knew about the opportunity, would have paid more? There’s no way to know.

So, there are valid reasons to make the conscious decision to go the pocket listing-off market-off MLS route, as long as you realize that you might not get as high a price as you could have otherwise. What are not valid reasons are your agent or broker desiring, by not publicizing the listing to other agents, to “double-end” the sale (i.e. represent both you and the buyer) and thus earn twice the commission, or your agent preferring not to spend the time, effort and money to comprehensively market and show your home. In both those scenarios, your agent is putting their interests above your interests – which, by the way, is a violation of their legal, fiduciary duty – and you should find another agent to represent you in the sale of your home.

The quality of the agent working on your behalf—his or her competence, integrity,
work ethic and commitment to your interests—can make an enormous difference
in the outcome of your home purchase or sale: in money, stress, time, future happiness.

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Ten San Francisco Homes That Sold Over Asking in September

Top10SFHomesOverAsking9-2013-1024x832

# Date Days on Market Area Property Type Address Beds Baths Price Sales Price as a % of the Original Price
1 9/6/13 8 Bernal Heights SFD 324 Highland 3 1 $1,112,000 146.51
2 9/13/13 28 Glen Park SFD 12 Addison Street 3 2 $1,312,000 145.94
3 9/20/13 13 Potrero Hill SFD 837 Wisconsin 2 1 $1,301,000 144.72
4 9/25/13 20 Inner Sunset SFD 1566 9th Avenue 4 2.25 $1,395,000 142.35
5 9/4/13 38 Bernal Heights SFD 3025 Cesar Chavez 3 2.5 $1,050,000 140.19
6 9/13/13 29 Mission Dolores Condo/Coop/TIC/Loft 161 Dolores Street #3 1 1 $580,000 138.42
7 9/12/13 55 North Panhandle SFD 2133 Golden Gate Avenue 3 1.5 $1,105,000 138.30
8 9/17/13 10 Inner Mission SFD 837 South Van Ness 5 1 $1,901,000 136.27
9 9/9/13 22 Glen Park SFD 37 Elk Street 3 2 $1,282,000 135.09
10 9/27/13 12 Pacific Heights SFD 2201 Lyon Street 6 3.5 $5,250,000 134.79
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Analysis – Home Ownership as an Investment

Home Prices, Inflation, Leverage & Home Equity
Paragon Real Estate Report, October 2013

First and foremost, any home purchased needs to work as a home: it fulfills your housing needs at an affordable monthly cost – ideally, a cost, after tax deductions and principal pay-down, less than or similar to that of renting the property. However, though it cannot be compared on an apples-to-apples basis to investments such as stocks, bonds and CDs (that you don’t live in), it’s worth looking at the issue of home ownership as a financial investment as well.

If you increase your screen-view zoom to 125%, the charts will be easier to read.

Home-Price Appreciation vs. CPI Inflation since 1988 
Home-Prices_vs_Inflation
This chart compares, over 25 years, the amount of inflation per the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to price appreciation for high-price-tier homes in the 5-county San Francisco Metro Area per the Case-Shiller Index. (Most of the City of San Francisco’s housing is in the high-price tier, the upper third of Bay Area unit sales.) In this chart, 1988 equals a price-value of 100; 127 equals a price 27% higher than the price in 1988 for the same goods or house. CPI inflation is relatively slow and steady: the average across the past 25 years is a little less than 3% per year. Home prices, however, jump dramatically up (appreciation) and down (depreciation) depending on the market cycle, but average appreciation from 1988 to mid-2013 was about 5% per year – though this calculation can vary greatly by the exact start and end dates chosen.

An average SF Metro Area home purchased in 1988 appreciated by 244% as of July 2013, while the overall CPI inflation rate was 97%. If the home had been sold at the recent bottom of the market, the difference would have narrowed to 165% appreciation vs. 95% inflation. Purchase and sell timing always matters and if one has to sell at the bottom of the market, it affects the return on any investment. As the chart illustrates, home-price appreciation usually outpaces inflation by a significant margin over the longer term: this is a good thing for homeowners and doesn’t include other benefits such as living in the property and the capital gains exclusion on the sale of a principal residence.

This analysis applies well to homes purchased with all cash and no financing. Leverage alters the picture substantially.

Leverage (Financing), Inflation and Home Equity Growth
Home-Price_vs_Home-Equity_Appreciation
If one leverages one’s home purchase by taking out a loan, then the growth in one’s home equity dramatically outpaces inflation over the longer term. For the sake of simplicity, in the example above, we’ll assume that home price appreciation and inflation both run at 3% per year, and that the buyer put down 20% in cash plus closing costs, and financed the remaining 80% with a 30-year fixed rate loan. In this scenario, each year that the inflation/ home appreciation rate is 3%, one’s home equity asset grows by about 15%, plus the principal repayment on the outstanding loan (which is a major component – like a forced savings account – in the growth of equity over time). Indeed, the higher the inflation rate, the greater the equity growth. If home price appreciation outpaces inflation as well – as it has over the past 25 years – that accelerates the increase in home equity further. Moreover, the financing cost is currently subsidized by the mortgage interest tax deduction, if that applies to your financial situation.

This is why, using reasonable leverage, real estate is typically considered a good long-terminvestment – short-term can be much riskier – as well as an excellent hedge against inflation. Of course, if leverage is abused as it was in the years of subprime lending, underwriting standards decline, predatory lending and home-refinancing frenzy (i.e. “using one’s home as a piggy bank”), other risks arise.

In earlier times, when people didn’t move around as much, one bought one’s home, paid it off over the years and when retirement came, had a home owned free and clear – a huge financial asset to be used as appropriate.

Ongoing Homeownership Costs vs. Rental Costs over Time 
Home-Payments_vs_Rents-at-CPI
In this chart, the increase in the annual cost of homeownership with a fixed-rate loan is compared with the increase in rent at a 3% inflation rate, and the increase in rent of a home subject to San Francisco rent control, where annual rent increases are limited to 60% of CPI. As seen, if one locks in a fixed mortgage interest rate, the increase in ownership cost is limited to the increase in property tax costs (limited under Prop 13) and maintenance expenses, while the entire rental cost may be subject to annual raises. Over the longer term, one’s ownership costs become more and more attractive when compared to rental housing costs subject to inflation. If one owned the home for the full 30-year loan period, the monthly mortgage payment itself would disappear.

We have generated two sample rent vs. buy scenarios for San Francisco here:

2-BR Apartment Rental vs. Condo Purchase and 3-BR House Rental vs. Purchase

And you can perform your own rent vs. buy scenario calculations here, using your own financial circumstances, assumptions and projections: Rent vs. Buy Calculator

Important caveats: Trying to compare buying a home to other financial investments on an apples-to-apples basis is impossible, because there are so many other variables at play: the use and enjoyment of the home, how the cost of homeownership compares to renting, physical condition decline over time (without further investment), risks and returns on other types of investments, home tax deductions, the capital gains exclusion on profit from a principal residence sale ($250k for single owner/ $500k for couple), market timing and other factors. All the analyses above are simply sample scenarios, looking at homeownership from a number of angles using a variety of assumptions. It is unknown whether they will apply to future trends.

As said in the first line of this report, first and foremost, any home purchased needs to work as a home: it fulfills your housing needs at an affordable monthly cost. If that’s where you start, with a fixed rate loan, and you don’t refinance out growing home equity, and you don’t have to sell during a market downturn (which, admittedly, isn’t always possible to avoid), then you should come out all right and more often, very well.

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Should a Seller Order Pre-Sale Inspection Reports

The question: Should a Seller should incur the cost of supplying property inspection reports — such as structural pest control inspections and the more general contractor’s inspection performed by a home-inspection specialist – to buyers prior to soliciting offers, part of what is typically called a buyer disclosure package?  Though it is true that this cost is usually borne by a buyer subsequent to their offer being accepted, there are large advantages for the seller to do so for buyer’s review before any offers are made. Advantages that we believe far outweigh the additional costs.

  • Getting pre-sale inspections up front helps preclude due-diligence renegotiations – which are almost always for amounts (far) greater than the cost of the reports – and makes it much less likely that the transaction will fall out of escrow (most often due to new issues being discovered, post-offer-acceptance).
  • If material issues are uncovered by these inspections, it gives the seller time to remediatethem appropriately or the listing agent to quantify them with professional estimates – which may be very important to prospective buyers – prior to going on market.
  • It allows for buyers to make no-inspection-contingency offers without the dangerous liability worries a listing agent and seller should have when there are no recent pest and contractor inspections. Any transaction allowed to close without recent inspection reports is asking for post-closing trouble, trouble that will embroil all the parties and will always cost more in time, energy, aggravation and money than the cost of having the inspections proactively.
  • Pre-marketing inspection reports may help price the property properly to begin with, and may even help substantiate a higher asking price. It’s always good to make prospective buyers as comfortable as possible regarding the condition of the property, because that comfortableness helps generate higher sales prices, especially in competitive bidding situations.

Remember: Always use the most widely respected inspectors in the area and have them do complete and comprehensive inspections.

 

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Interactive Map, May 2013-Sept 2013 Home Value Review

Click the map below to explore neighborhood home values based on sales from May 2013 to September 2013.

The median sales price can be, and often is, affected by other factors besides changes in market values, such as short-term or seasonal changes in inventory or buying trends.

The average dollar per square foot is based upon the home’s interior living space which doesn’t include garages, unfinished attics and basements, rooms built without permit, lot size, or patios and decks – though all these can still add value.