Arn Cenedella

The San Francisco Peninsula real estate market is picking up!

There is lot of data about the local real estate market out there.

Much of it is conflicting and one really needs to pay attention to what the data SPECIFICALLY measures.

So I am going to write about what I see and am experiencing on a first hand basis in my own business and in my office.

The past few weeks, my office has averaged about 15 sales per week.

During the first three months of the year, I would say my office weekly sales were more like 5 to 7 per week.

In the past few weeks, my office has sold some property at very high prices – $6M, $4M, and $3M.

That being said, the upper end of the market is still much weaker than the lower end.

In the past week, I wrote 4 offers for my buyer clients and 1 was accepted - the other 3 lost out in multiple offer situations. This offers were in the entry level price range.

This increased market activity is due to several factors in my humble opinion:

1. Buyers are feeling a little more confident about their jobs and the economy.

While the economy is still weak, the attitude is much more positive NOW than it was in October and November 2008. When the stock market was dropping like a rock and our wonderful leaders in Washington DC (Not!) were preaching doom and gloom, many of us were worried about whether our economic/financial system would survive as we know it. I believe at the present time, most of us believe we will survive – that some tough times are still ahead but that our economic and financial systems will not collapse.

2. Sellers are getting more realistic about prices. Buyers are getting to believe prices are attractive.

Sellers are always about 6 to 9 months behind the buyers – ie the buyers know the market has changed while the sellers refuse to accept reality and hope for the market when there wer 10 offers for every listing.

3. Interest rates are about as low as they can go.

For months, buyers have been wiating for rates to drop and they have. But I think it is now apparent that rates will not go much lower if at all.

We are not out of the woods yet. But things look better than they were 6 months ago.

There are some good buys out there!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 5:06 pm and is filed under los altos real estate, Menlo Park Real Estate, Mountain View real estate, Palo Alto Real Estate, Portola Valley Real Estate, Redwood City Real Estate, San Carlos Real Estate, Sunnyvale Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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