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San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

redfin.com

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Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#131

Post by shimon »

ryanSrich wrote: post #78
tortilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic, but how was your experience with Redfin? I'm thinking of using them.

As a buyer I would assume it's pretty similar to other agents. The only big difference is that they contribute some stipend to your closing costs. So it's a bit cheaper for both parties (as they take a smaller commission as well) to go with Redfin.

Minor clarification: when we bought through Redfin in 2010, the rebate came as a check a week or two after closing, not a contribution to closing costs. Adding a transaction to the already complex closing process would not have been worth the benefit of getting the money a bit sooner.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#132

Post by ryanSrich »

kyledrake wrote: post #122
ryanSrich wrote: post #43

It's always hard to believe the numbers, but I trust Redfin since I used them to purchase my home. I think the problem is comparing what's turn key and not. For example they say: > Portland, OR had the nation’s highest price growth, rising 16.1% since last year to $325,000... The problem is you're fighting 100's of people for that one house in Portland that is livable at $325,000. Most houses that cheap need a ton of…

An observation I've also had is that not many people factor in time, maintenance and repair costs when considering Portland homes. I've looked at $350k houses here that are complete junk without another $50-200k in (I'm not just talking kitchen remodels, just as often I see serious roof and water damage problems), and therefore really are priced at $450-600k. Real estate brokers have been.. less than stellar about di…

It's literally crazy. We bought our house last May and have seen a 45% increase in value (according to online estimators which are usually off by a bit). So far we've lucked out. Our house was built in 1920 and had major work done in 1950, 2005, and again in 2009. Over the past 9 months the only major issue we've had is updating our furnace and heating from oil to natural gas (which ends up saving us money in the long run). I do wonder about many of these flipped houses though. Just one street over I've seen 3 1920's houses flipped in a few weeks and sold for crazy high amounts. These flips have to be mostly cosmetic. They make the interiors look amazing, but the house itself is still shot.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#134

Post by lsc »

pascal1usa wrote: post #63
ryanSrich wrote: post #43

It's always hard to believe the numbers, but I trust Redfin since I used them to purchase my home. I think the problem is comparing what's turn key and not. For example they say: > Portland, OR had the nation’s highest price growth, rising 16.1% since last year to $325,000... The problem is you're fighting 100's of people for that one house in Portland that is livable at $325,000. Most houses that cheap need a ton of…

Yup. And, as vc dollars start drying up and companies get pressure to become profitable again, employers will figure out where to go: out of San Francisco.

So, my impression is that the companies that pay enough that you can actually afford to think about buying in SF are the large and profitable companies... from what I've seen, vc-dependent startups pay dramatically less.

Of course, most of those profitable company jobs are in the south bay, not in SF proper, but hell, if I could buy one of those mini-condos in sf for a quarter mill, I'd jump on it.

I'm trying to say that I'm not sure that the vc-dependent will have as much effect on the market overall as you say, unless the slowdown progresses to the point where it starts pulling down the big guys.

(which isn't impossible. someone put forth the theory that a lot of the highest-margin advertising dollars come from said vc-dependent firms, and if those went away, everyone would pay a lot less for advertising, which would dramatically effect the big, profitable employers around here. I would rate that theory as plausible, but not certain.)

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#136

Post by mediaman »

marincounty wrote: post #85
tortilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic, but how was your experience with Redfin? I'm thinking of using them.

I don't know anything about this company. I have an idea what market they are trying to crack. I can't believe it's taken this long. I've always felt paying a Realtor 3% on the biggest item most of us will buy in our lives is crazy. I just don't know what they do for that commission. I don't know what makes one successful--just because he/she sold more than the others? Pay them more because they know how to network?…

Good agents can be worth it.

Redfin provides a refund of a portion of their commission as a seller's agent. I considered them when selling a house. However, after having meetings with an agent of theirs and another independent agent that charged the normal 3% seller's fee, I decided to go with the independent.

The Redfin agent had suggested a price of $649k, while the independent suggested $745k. The house wound up selling just under ask of $738k. The Redfin agent did very little work to understand the value of the property and what it could be sold for, and only used an automated tool, while the independent agent did more work to select better comparable properties. And the more expensive broker wound up paying for some items such as light landscaping and staging, so the price difference was less than the percentage differential.

Obviously in this case the discounts Redfin provided did not nearly make up for the difference in selling price. A good broker can get a price that is vastly larger than the difference in their price.

However, Redfin would probably be great for selling properties that are part of subdivisions, or in a condo building, where the automated tool would work very well and not as much "human intelligence" is required to get the job done.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#137

Post by eanzenberg »

tortilla wrote: post #52
ryanSrich wrote: post #43

It's always hard to believe the numbers, but I trust Redfin since I used them to purchase my home. I think the problem is comparing what's turn key and not. For example they say: > Portland, OR had the nation’s highest price growth, rising 16.1% since last year to $325,000... The problem is you're fighting 100's of people for that one house in Portland that is livable at $325,000. Most houses that cheap need a ton of…

A bit off topic, but how was your experience with Redfin? I'm thinking of using them.

Took a quick look and their price estimations are dubious at best. In the complex I live in, comparing 2 condos of exact layout and sq footage, same view, sold 4 weeks apart, one on the 2nd floor the other on the 4th: the 2nd floor unit's price 'grew' $20k while the 4th floor unit 'grew' $500. Great job on 2 orders of magnitude error.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#138

Post by MoosePirate »

NDizzle wrote: post #9

Maybe it's just redfin not having this in their own data, but I'd really like to see these graphs from 1998 and up. Only going back to 2012 isn't very useful in my opinion.

Zillow has a huge amount of data they publish at the Zip, City, County, State levels: http://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#139

Post by kspaans »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

Reaffirming once again that if "nobody can afford to buy them" the actual prices start coming down. A more interesting thing for me however was that owner occupied (which is to say the person buying the house lives there) has not been growing[1]. Instead third parties are buying the houses as investments and renting them. That is a really risky strategy in a place like SF with rent controls as the floor can fall out…

Remember that rent control only applies to buildings built before 1978, so it's not _all_ rent controlled.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#140

Post by NDizzle »

underwires wrote: post #119
NDizzle wrote: post #9

Maybe it's just redfin not having this in their own data, but I'd really like to see these graphs from 1998 and up. Only going back to 2012 isn't very useful in my opinion.

Trulia has some of the more basic data going back to 2000 http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/m...

Wow. Number of home sales for 3 and 4 bedrooms currently at it's lowest level since 2000. I guess that's expected. Really validates my decision to move out of the bay area to raise my 3 kids.
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