San Francisco Market Statistical Overview

By virtually every statistical measure of supply and demand, the SF market cooled in 2016: price appreciation generally plateaued, inventory ticked up and sales ticked down, months supply of inventory and days on market increased, and the percentage of sales price over asking price declined. All the changes have been statistically significant, but, except for the luxury condo market (which has softened more dramatically), none of the recent statistics by themselves indicate what would be typically called a weak market. For example, months supply of inventory increased from an average of 1.7 months in the first 8 months of 2015 to 2.3 in 2016, but 2.3 is still quite low; days on market went up 3 days for houses and 7 days for condos, but the current figures are still not high; the percentage of sales price over asking price decreased by about 4 percentage points in 2016, but condos and houses are still averaging sales prices 3% to 8% over original list price, which would have sellers in most other places jumping up and down in glee. Perhaps the statistic most indicative of change is that the number of listings expiring or being withdrawn from the market without selling has gone up a whopping 60% (and for luxury condos, up over 100%). This is the clearest sign possible of sellers trying to sell their homes for more money than any buyer is willing to pay.