McKae Properties Real Estate Market Commentary

 This week has started with 5 transactions falling through, 4 listings back on the market, and 11 price cuts, 73 new listings, 9 contingent and 58 pending, with 57 sold. "Going Back Home" is the swan call of the renters moving.  "Working from home and having every room rented to cover costs is not why we came to the Bay Area."   Within the next several months we will witness the results of unpaid rent and unpaid mortgages.  I do not have much faith in a solution. The subsidy programs are already finding it difficult to pay landlords.  Landlords who have been unable to finance the deficits will need to consider their losses, eat them or sell! eXp Realty is training agents for the possible oncoming foreclosure action and bank sale of REO, (real estate owned).  Becoming "certified" is a return to 2007-2011 when we had the last foreclosure boom.  Short sales and foreclosure sales were once the main source of buying properties from speculators to cost conscious

There seems to be an over abundance of real estate news from hot markets to cold markets to falling rents and pre-foreclosure risks.  Rather than using the Media reports. I have decided to go to the source.  The Multiple Listing Service has reports for every week and month going back in time.  The MLS has reports that give a view of the markets by price range and an analysis of what buyers and sellers are most interested in.  So let's go forward The "Five Counties New vs Sold" is the first stop on our travel through the real estate marketplace. From March 2020 to March 2021 there were 26,974 "new listing" and 21,891 "sales".  On average it took 22 days to sell.  The average price was $1,022,661.  The total sales for the "Five County Area" was $22,375,718,789.  That was up from $16,239,021,898. In San Mateo County the Days on the Market (DOM) for March were 18  The price to list was 107%. The average sales price for San Mateo County was $2,311

While rents collapsed, rent went unpaid and landlords fought to keep above water an exodus evolved from the Bay Area; but within Silicon Valley, Luxury Homes escalated in numbers sold and in median prices. Quite an aberration.  In San Mateo County the number of Luxury Home Sales went from 564 in 2020 to 679.  In Santa Clara the number of Luxury Homes sold went from 1465 in 2020 to 1498 in 2021.   For 2021 Luxury Median Priced homes popped from $1.45 million to $2.90 million and Santa Clara from, $1.33 million to $2.66 million. (Thank you Louis Hansen of the Mercury News) The rush from San Francisco was  evident as Woodside, Portola Valley with their 1 acre minimum parcels provided space and safety.  *News Break states that East Palo Alto is among the Cities where home values are falling the most.  Between January 2020 to January 2021 the typical American Single Family home appreciated by 9.1%.  In East Palo Alto it declined 2.6% with a change in population, only to be beat by San Franc

 Do we need a "wake up call"?  Since the beginning of the year to present, interest rates on 10-year US Government Bonds have risen 3/4%, give or take a few basis points or so (100 basis point equal 1 % point).   SO WHAT? Well the current yield of the 10-year T-bond is the rate mortgages are based upon.  Rising rates also are one of the measurements that banks and mortgage lenders use to determine their willingness to make loans either for their portfolio or to sell in the open market.  Once mortgage originators find an unwillingness to buy mortgages, interest rates must rise to make the buyers willing to take on the potential of higher rates.  The Federal Reserve has been the buyer of last resort that has kept interest rates down.  The FED has failed to stop the dramatic rise in rates. The FED has not accelerated its buying of mortgages in the after market.  Pension funds and investment companies who are the normal sources of buyers of mortgages have been reluctant to buy mo

 2020 was indisputably a year for the real estate history books!  The onset of the global pandemic in a year of stops and starts.  It led to a shift in how we conduct our personal and professional lives.  The navigation through the pandemic witnessed a social and cultural movement that restructured societies, how we conduct business, adjusted to online learning and experienced a shift from large urban centers to rural small communities. The housing market went from cold to hot as the average price of existing home rose on a U.S. average.  It was not necessarily the once hot cities and urban hot spots that dominated.  The resiliency of the real estate industry was one of the biggest surprises of the year.  The large scale shift to working from home created a shift from homes close to work to locations that did not require commuting.  Families sought out more spacious properties to achieve a better work-life balance.   The home migration created a hot market outside of the once hot urban

There is and has been a constant movement of residents from the Bay Area.  Few have realised that the movement has not been  predominantly  out of state.  The movement has been to areas in California that provide Affordability, Good Schools, Lower Cost of Living and larger and less expensive homes. Rents have collapsed at spectacular rates, with San Francisco leading the race down.  To those who have rented solely for the night life and commuting to work it has ended with COVID 19.  The cramped conditions of apartments with no night life has taken the glamour out of "nightlife".   The one and two bedroom starter homes too have become an upgraded solitary confinement quarters; irrespective of, the ability to walk around a 6000 square feet lot  occupied  by a 1350 square foot home with attached garage. When those who decide to look for a larger home in a community with safety and good schools they are faced with: A  recently  sold West Menlo, "elegant and artistic...modern

 SFGate reports that San Francisco rents may have finally hit bottom.  The rental market may be reflecting the action in the recent Game Stop trading.  Never try to catch a falling knife in stock trading, which begs the question, what does one apply to property rentals?  Apartment List shows that rents fell just .4%, while Zumper is reporting prices actually rose .8%.  After monumental declines of 25% and 27%, depending on which service you wish to follow, even a minimal loss or gain is noteworthy. It questions the point of  who  will be the parties renting?  The techies have departed from the Bay Area to parts unknown, whether it be to Hawaii or parts east of the Bay Area or even out of state.  After the rise in unemployment benefits, checks from the US treasury, matched with renter relief from the State of California, the poor souls who lost their homes or apartments to soaring rents replaced by Techies coming to Facebook, Google, Yelp and the like, have the opportunity to come back