Bay Area Home Prices "Not Scorching Hot ... But Still Very Hot"
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Home prices and sales continue to cool across the Bay Area, according to numbers released by CoreLogic.
The median home price in the Bay Area in May of 2019 was $860,000 compared to $874,750 in May of 2018 -- a 1.7% drop.
"It's not scorching hot like it was a year ago, but it's still very hot," said Patrick Sedillo, a realtor at Coldwell Banker who sells homes primarily in San Mateo County.
Sedillo just completed a "pending" sale with a homeowner in South San Francisco who accepted an offer from a buyer. Sedillo said that process took twice as long as it would have in the past.
"A year ago, this house would have taken 7 days to get off the market," Sedillo said. "This time it took 14 days."
Home sales year-to-year are down 2.7% Bay Area wide, the study shows, which is actually not as much of a drop as some of the preceding months.
Broken down by individual counties, Santa Clara had the biggest change with an 11 percent drop in home sales year-to-year. San Mateo County was second, with a 9 percent drop. Alameda had a 0.2% drop, Contra Costa County grew by 1.6% and San Francisco grew by 0.5%.
"Home sales have strengthened this spring thanks to lower mortgage rates, more inventory and a transition to a more neutral market where buyers have some bargaining power," said Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic analyst.
"This May's annual sales decline of just under 3% was the smallest decrease since home sales began falling on a year-over-year basis last August. Lower mortgage rates and a flattening of home prices mean that compared with a year ago there's been a decline in the mortgage payments that many would-be buyers must qualify.""
It is not clear what the long term impact will be, but in the short term, realtor Dan Hendel of Coldwell Banker who focuses on San Francisco, said there are fewer bidders, less competition than a year ago.
"There's definitely a better chance to get your offer accepted," Hendel said. "You still might have to write a love letter and explain to the seller how much the property means to you and tug at their heart strings."
But for most in the Bay Area, especially renters ... how much difference will these numbers really make?
"It makes me hopeful for someone else," said Lia Presnell of South San Francisco. "From the get-go it's not accessible. All those little nuances are probably really helpful for someone who has been waiting for that little bit of a window, but I feel like really for a lot of us, it's totally outside of the mark. Doesn't really equate to much change."
