The latest market report is here. (You can also view previous market updates by selecting the archives on the upper right portion of the screen).

From the Real Estate Market Trends Report:

The median price for single-family, re-sale homes gained 3.7% to go back over $900,000 for the first time since August. Year-over-year, the median price is up 11.2%. The average price dropped 6.6% from the record high set in October. It was up 18.3% compared to last November.

Home sales fell 11.9% from October, down 20.5% year-over-year. Year-to-date, home sales are down 11.2%.

The median price for condos in San Francisco dipped 1.2% to $745,750 from October, up 20.5% year-over-year. The average price for condos gained 0.2% to $886,607, month-over-month. The average price was up 20.2% year-over-year.

San Francisco condo sales were down 8% in November, down 17.6% year-over-year. Year-to-date, condo sales are down 1.5%.

Just a quick note to say “YAY!” Luba’s San Francisco Real Estate Blog got a quick mention from the folks at Curbed SF – coincidentally one of my favoritest San Francisco blogs out there.

They noticed my post about the potentially positive real estate outlook for SF in 2008.

To those of you that have stumbled on this post and enjoy reading about San Fransico Real Estate, San Francisco Living and other random things, feel free to subscribe to the feed or subscribe to get blog updates via email . And don’t worry, if you subscribe via email, not only will I not ever share your email addres with anyone, I won’t even get it myself – I’m not sure quite how it works, but you can thank feedburner.com for that wonderful bit of magic.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to swing by anytime for all the latest!

First, I’m not exactly sure if the happy hippie in the picture has anything to do with San Francisco real estate, but I guess San Francisco IS the birthplace of the hippe movement, so maybe it fits in somehow.

Second, I hope you noticed that the title to this post rhymes – I put a lot of energy and effort into that little bit of poetic verse for you, my loyal readers.

And third, I think there’s good news happening in the SF real estate market. Now, feel free to take the title of this post with a grain of salt (or a couple of grains of salt followed by a shot of tequila and some lime) – but I think that there might be a decent housing market in San Francisco on the horizon.

And no, I haven’t started taking shots of tequila myself. I’ve spent the morning at the Zephyr weekly sales meeting where we spent some time tossing around our impressions of what’s really going down in the town.

And what pray tell gives me the nerve to be so damn optimistic today about the market? A few examples:

Falling Interest Rates – And I mean FALLING! Today, New Source Financial threw out some rates for to let us know how things are going. Here are some numbers to ponder.

Conforming Loans ($417,000 and below)
30 year fixed: 5.25% with 1 point/ 5.75% with no points
15 year fixed: 4.875% with 1 point/ 5.25% with no points
5/1 arm: 5.625% no points

Jumbo Loans ($417,000 to $2 million 80% LTV)
30 year fixed: 6.5% with 1 point/ 6.875% with no points
15 year fixed: 6.0% with 1 point/ 6.25% with no points
7/1 arm interest only: 5.875% with 1 point/ 6.125% with no points
5/1 arm interest only: 5.625% with 1 point/ 5.875% with no points

Frankly, these are some kick ass rates. And if you have good credit, good income, and a decent down payment (it could even be 5-10%), you CAN afford to buy a home.

Not to mention that economists predict that the Federal Reserve may cut rates YET AGAIN before its next scheduled meeting on January 30th. If that’s not good news for home buyers, I don’t know what is.

Hot Properties are SELLING!: And they’re selling with a lot of interest. In fact, several of the homes on yesterday’s broker tour in San Francisco were ALREADY SOLD after just a few days on the market. Granted, most of these where in the high end market of SF real estate, but the low end had its fair share of activity too. In fact, I just put in an offer for a client on a place that was priced well, and received 5 offers, all above asking. We came in with a very strong offer, yet I’m still not sure if it was strong enough to beat the competition.

The Buyers are Back!: Buyers are back out and trying to buy! And I’m not just talking about my clients either. At today’s sales meeting, most agents have buyers that are ready and eager to buy, buy buy! But it’s the same old San Francisco story – there’s just not enough good inventory out there.

To Recap: So interest rates are down meaning that buyers can afford to buy homes again. Properties now have multiple offers again and buyers are ready to buy again, which all boils down to the fact that it’s unlikely that the San Francisco real estate market will fall apart, and in fact, it seems that it will be all great in 2008!

So if you’re looking to sell a home, there will be buyers for it. If you’ve bought your house in the last few years, don’t expect to make money on it. But if you bought your house several years ago, and it’s well maintained and in a desirable location, you will get a decent return on your original investment. Contact me and I can tell you what your home might be worth in today’s market.

And if you’re looking to buy a home, there WILL be homes to buy, and the interest rates will be LOW. If you’ve been sitting on the fence and waiting to buy until prices hit rock bottom, you might reconsider your position, because with interest rates heading back down, property values WON’T be falling in SF and at least here in the City, you won’t be able to get that “steal of a deal” you’ve been fantasizing about. But you will be able to get that HOME you’ve been dreaming of, along with all of the benefits that property ownership carry with it. Contact me and I can help you decide if NOW is the right time for you to buy a home.

Here are the latest Fast Facts from the SFAR. There’s no denying that some neighborhoods didn’t do quite as well in 2007 as they did in 2006, but others actually did do better. Read the stats below for full details.

Fast Facts

Welcome back to the “Over, Under, At” weekly feature. It’s a simple breakdown taken from MLS data that shows the number of closed sales that sold Over Asking Price, Under Asking Price or At Asking Price.

*Just a reminder that new construction sales are rarely included in this list since they don’t get posted on the MLS.

As predicted last week - sales are slooooooow. Not too much stuff is closing, but as I mentioned before, these are sales that went into contract during the slow season, so this shouldn’t be a surprise and doesn’t indicate anything about the way the market will move in the upcoming months. In fact, with interest rates falling, the next few months should bring us more closed sales as buyers are able to make more reasonable mortgage payments. If you have questions about the state of the market, or are interested in seeing if now is a good time to buy or sell your home, please contact me, I’m always happy to help in any way that I can.

Here’s a quick breakdown of closed San Francisco home sales for the week from January 5 – 11, 2008:

Single Family Homes –
12 Homes Sold

Condos/Lofts/Co-ops’s –
8 Homes Sold

TIC’s –
9 Homes Sold

Happy Photo Friday! It’s hard to believe that San Francisco was at one point covered in farms. Don’t believe me? This photo is of the Lange Dairy and was taken in 1892. The scene is looking SW to Sutro Forest from present site of Cole and Carl. Prior to the area being developed for housing, there was a lake (Laguna Seca) at the valley below Cole and Parnassus - known as Cole Valley today.

So the “R” word (recession) has been thrown around a lot lately. Higher unemployment rates lead many economists to believe that the economy is heading downhill. But what’s bad for the economy is good for homeowners – interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in 2 years!

If you’ve purchased a home in the last two years, now is a great time to refinance. If you’re sitting on the fence about whether now is a good time to buy a home, you can get a great rate on a conforming loan. If you have questions or want to explore your options, call or email me and I’ll be happy to talk to you and point you in the right direction.

Read the Article in SF Gate: Mortgage Rates Fell Below 6 Percent Mark

OK… so you can’t exactly spy on your solar powered neighbors, but you CAN see just how much they could be saving in electricity bills, and how much smaller they can make their carbon footprint by going solar. I caught this post on getwithgreen.com where they say that “this neat little interactive tool offers a few minutes of fun by identifying locations across the city where homeowners installed solar, as well as a few interesting facts on solar in the city of San Francisco.”

It also lets your plug in your address (or your neighbor’s) to see how solar power might affect you. For me, in the fog-laden Outer Sunset, I’d save between $209-417 a year in electricity and would reduce my carbon consumption by a whopping 1361.45 – 2722.9 lbs per year, but according to the estimate, this would be identical to the savings that a home in sunny Potrero Hill would receive. My guess is that the estimate has to be a little off, but the site is pretty damn cool none the less.

See how many solar powered homes there are in the City, or see how much you could save by going solar at the SF Solar Map.

It seems like people LOVE data – so I’m going to give you more of it. 

Here’s a quick update from the SFAR.  Updates are provided weekly and each week is a different sector of the market (ie. Condos, Single Family Homes, 2-4 unit dwellings, etc.).

Check back next week for more statistics..

Fast Facts

Welcome back to the “Over, Under, At” weekly feature. It’s a simple breakdown taken from MLS data that shows the number of closed sales that sold Over Asking Price, Under Asking Price or At Asking Price.

*Just a reminder that new construction sales are rarely included in this list since they don’t get posted on the MLS.

Holy Crap! It’s really the first week of 2008. I’m still not really over that yet. Sales are even SLOWER than last week, but that’s to be expected since there were only a few days last week that were really working days. (You can only close a sale on a weekday and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the preferred days to close). Stay tuned for next week’s numbers which I expect will still be low since these will all be sales that closed in December.

Here’s a quick breakdown of closed San Francisco home sales for the week from December 29, 2007-January 4, 2008:

Single Family Homes –
18 Homes Sold

Condos/Lofts/Co-ops’s –
8 Homes Sold

TIC’s –
3 Homes Sold