Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a March 2019 market update for the NAGLREP Bay Area meeting held at the SF Association of Realtors offices in Hayes Valley. It was an honor to address such an esteemed group of individuals, and it was a packed room that had come to hear the incredibly powerful story of Climb’s Cedric Tchante’s escape from persecution in Cameroon and building his life in San Francisco.

Cedric Tchante of Climb speaks to NAGLREP about leaving Cameroon

Below are my slides, with some 2019 market snapshots so far showing that inventory, sales and prices are down slightly since the beginning of the year… but that’s also when we have our least attractive product mix (the re-treads lead the listing pack in January), and we’ve also had one of the wetter February’s in recent memory, so could it just be the weather? We also chatted about the impending IPO-palooza and if it is hype or meaningful.

One of the most interesting market segments to me was the 1 – 1.5 million condo range in 2018. It was the area where buyers that wanted a single family often ended up, and a highly competitive price point because many buyers didn’t like the trade-offs or locations for lower priced properties, but are pushing the maximum of what they can afford. It consistently saw the most aggressive metrics for competition.

Finally, some general caveats about real estate statistics and data in San Francisco. We talked about this back on podcast #56: Precisely-ish, Sordid Sources for San Francisco Real Estate, where we tried to come to a precise number of homes for sale in San Francisco. Back in September 2018, our count of available homes ranged from 950 – 1,800!