Is San Francisco hot again?

Could pen to paper on the bailout bill be enough to re-ignite the San Francisco real estate market? Well, I think San Francisco Sellers and their listing agents must think so. In the last full week of September in two of the hottest sections of town, District 5 (includes Noe Valley, Cole Valley, the Castro, Glen Park and many other central/south San Francisco neighborhoods) and District 7 (the Marina, Pacific Heights, Cow Hollow and Presidio Heights all in the north of SF) had 43 new listings come on the market (Condos, Single Family Homes and 2-4 unit buildings). But in just the first 3 days of October, 41 new listings have come on the market in those same SF areas. 16 yesterday, and 17 today.

I noticed the flood of new listings for a Buyer who was getting fed up with the lack of anything decent to see. I was excited for her when I was able to email her 3 new matching home listings yesterday. Then today... another 5. These are Single Family Homes in District 5 mostly priced from $1.2 to $2.2 million. That's a pretty amazing influx of new homes when you consider that in 2 days it matched the new homes of the previous 13 days.

Now the naysayers will say that's too much inventory and it will slow things down, but generally there is so little good quality inventory in San Francisco that we need supply to generate more sales, entice more buyers, and get things going again. This particular Buyer is very active in looking and will probably see all 8 of the new homes this weekend. And trust me, there will be a LOT more than 8 buyers at each of these open houses. The top 2 or 3 of these 8 probably have a chance of going into contract this week because all of the other District 5 buyers are probably as frustrated as my buyer... so the best of the bunch may get jumped on by quite a few buyers.

With the bailout bill behind us I'm going to guess that more than a few Buyers are going to feel more comfortable and get back to serious house hunting... and now with a new supply of homes to see... watch out. As with all of my predictions, only time will tell... but San Francisco is almost always a Sellers market in the more affluent neighborhoods, and the pre-bailout confusion definitely put a temporary break on things... apparently from both Buyers and Sellers... and so far the Sellers have lifted off the brakes and hit the gas pedal. Will the Buyers do the same this coming week? What do you think?