The Case-Shiller Index for the San Francisco Metro Area covers the house markets of 5 Bay Area counties, divided into 3 price tiers, each constituting one third of unit sales. Most of San Francisco’s, Marin’s and San Mateo’s house sales are in the “high price tier”, so that is where we focus most of our attention. The Index is published 2 months after the month in question and reflects a 3-month rolling average, so it will always reflect the market of some months ago. June’s Index was just recently released.
The 5 counties in our Case-Shiller Metro Statistical Area are San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa. Needless to say, there are many different real estate markets found in such a broad region, and it’s probably fair to say that the city of San Francisco’s market has generally out-performed the general metro area market.
Typically, the market cools off and plateaus for the summer months and that is what we are starting to see in the new Case-Shiller numbers for June. The next big indication of market conditions and trends will come after the autumn selling season begins in mid-September: That is typically when there is a large surge in new listings and buyer demand picks up again until the holiday slow-down begins in mid-November. It is difficult to make definitive statements about the market during the summer and mid-winter holidays because the market almost always slows substantially during these times.
The high-price home segment for the SF Metro area saw no significant change from May to June, though the low and mid-price segments both ticked up by a percentage point or two. Short-term fluctuations are much less meaningful than longer-term trends.
To learn more about Seasonality & The San Francisco Real Estate Market, check out my most recent issue of sfnewsletter by clicking that link.
As always, if you have any questions, you should know where to find me by now.