California Dominates List of Most Thriving U.S. Housing Markets
June 4, 2015 by Pacific Union • Posted in Market Conditions
Demand for Golden State real estate remained strong in May, with California metro areas accounting for half of what Realtor.com deems the country’s hottest markets.
Using a combination of the number of views per listing on its website and the median age of inventory, Realtor.com compiled a list of the 20 hottest U.S. real estate markets for buyers and sellers. Housing supply shortages and a booming economy landed 10 California metro areas on the list, seven of them located in the northern part of the state.
Realtor.com ranks the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area as the nation’s second hottest housing market, followed by the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area at No. 3. Both regions held the same spot on Realtor.com’s list of hottest markets in April.
The Vallejo-Fairfield metro area ranked No. 5, also unchanged from the previous month. Santa Cruz-Watsonville placed No. 7, swapping places with Santa Rosa, which dropped one spot from April to the No. 8 position. After not ranking among the nation’s 20 hottest markets in April, Sacramento moved up to No. 12, while Stockton came in at No. 20. In Southern California, the San Diego, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro areas also counted among the top 20.
According to Realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke, it’s not unusual to see demand for homes in the Sacramento region spike after strong growth in the Bay Area housing market, thanks to its relative affordability. However, during this cycle, Sacramento is experiencing above-average employment gains, leading to an uptick in the number of household formations.
Realtor.com doesn’t provide median days on market times for individual regions, noting only that homes across the country stayed on the market 66 days in May. But a look at the most recent sales data from the California Association of Realtors shows that the Golden State’s housing market is moving at about twice the speed of the U.S. market, with single-family homes selling in a median 34.2 days in April.
Bay Area homes are selling even faster, with properties on the market a median of 29.8 days across the nine-county region in April. Homes in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties sold at the quickest clip of any in California, 17.4 and 17.5 days, respectively. San Francisco tied Kern County in the Central Valley for third-fastest sales pace in the state: 21.0 days.
(Photo: Flickr/Druh Scoff)
Real Estate Roundup: San Francisco Is World’s Fastest-Appreciating Luxury Market
May 26, 2015 by Pacific Union • Posted in Weekly Real Estate News Roundups
Here’s a look at recent news of interest to homebuyers, home sellers, and the home-curious.
Homes in Sea Cliff, one of San Francisco’s high-end neighborhoods.
SAN FRANCISCO LEADS WORLD FOR ANNUAL LUXURY HOME PRICE GAINS
Demand for high-end homes in San Francisco is driving up prices, so much so that they grew more than in any other luxury market around the globe.
Citing data from the most recent Knight Frank Prime Global Cities Index, CNN reports that high-end home prices in San Francisco grew by 14.3 percent over the past year, edging out Bangalore, India, for largest annual increase in the world. San Francisco was one of three U.S. regions to crack the top 10 for appreciation, along with Miami, where prices increased by 12.2 percent, and Los Angeles, where they grew by 8 percent.
The index echoes findings from Christie’s International Real Estate’s 2015 Luxury Defined report, which ranked San Francisco as the second hottest luxury real estate market in the world.
DISTRESSED SALES IN SINGLE DIGITS IN ALL NINE BAY AREA COUNTIES
Distressed sales hovered in the single-digit range across the Bay Area in April, with two local counties claiming the lowest rates in the Golden State.
According to the California Association of Realtors’ April pending home sales and Market Pulse Survey, distressed sales accounted for 1 percent of single-family home transactions in San Mateo County last month, the fewest in the state. San Francisco County tied Santa Cruz County for the second fewest distressed sales at 2 percent. Across the rest of the Bay Area, distressed-sales rates ranged from 3 percent in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and Santa Clara counties to 9 percent in Solano County.
CAR says that while pending home sales in the Bay Area slipped by 6.8 percent from March, activity increased by 12 percent on an annual basis. Across the state, pending home sales fell by 0.6 percent month over month and rose 13.6 percent from April 2014.
U.S. 2015 HOUSING FORECAST IMPROVES
Freddie Mac upped its expectations for U.S. home price gains last week, though the company is not as optimistic as it was about the economy.
In its May 2015 U.S. Economic and Housing Outlook, Freddie Mac forecasts home prices to grow by 4.5 percent this year, revised from 4.0 percent in April. Having previously predicted the U.S. economy to expand by 2.6 percent in 2015, weak first-quarter data has prompted the company to instead project 2.3 percent growth. Still, Fannie Mae notes that the economy has added 5 million jobs over the past two years, and that the U.S. unemployment rate is substantially lower than it was in 2013.
In a statement accompanying the report, Freddie Mac Chief Economist Len Kiefer said that low interest rates kept affordability high in the first quarter even as income growth remained sluggish.
CALIFORNIA FAVORITE STATE FOR CHINESE INVESTORS
Chinese investors have pumped more money into California than any other state over the past 15 years, while China-based companies have contributed a significant number of jobs to the economy.
CNBC reports that Chinese investors have funneled $5.9 billion into California since 2000, the most of any U.S. state. China-based companies employ 8,300 California workers, mostly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
The article says that 370 Chinese companies have a presence in California, including Baidu, Huawei, and Alibaba.com.
(Photo: Flickr/Joe Ross)
