The story is the recovery in the SF condo market. I am sure you have heard about how everyone is “left.” Well a lot of renters did leave in March to June 2020, temporarily. If you could just give up your obligations and go shelter with the people you love, why not? People who owned condos as rentals all found it to be the opportune time to sell them. And then we had a big increase in inventory and commensurate decline in prices based on oversupply starting in April of 2020. In addition to the numbers I hdave on sales, below, we have anecdotally had some of our toughest rentals get filled this last week.
Good news for condo owners – things have reversed! Buyers who were hoping for a continued downward trend are going to be disappointed. Certain sectors are going to lag behind others in this recovery (such as TICs and condos in large elevator buildings or rough neighborhoods), but this data shows the entire city overall for 2 bedroom condos and the trend is strong. … notice the low point is sales in November on the average price and there have been stead gains in average price since then. Also notice that the volume in December 2020 was 173% of December 2019 and January 2021 was more than double January 2020! We are now in a sharp upward correction with good momentum and the October ratifications (November closed sales) were the bottom of this V shaped mess in the SF condo market caused by COVID. Also notice how the volume really picked up in July with 115 sales compared to 72 in June and 36 in May. From August onward, there were actually lots of sales as people started picking up the bargains. (The lower volume in January is seasonal. February is just a short month and I ran this on the morning of the 25th because I couldn’t wait to see the #s!)
The low point of this cycle, in October 2020, 2 bed condos were down nearly 20% over all. Since then they are up over 5% and climbing. I will update at the end of March and we will see more territory recovered for SF condos.
San Francisco 2 bed condo sales December 2019 to February 2021
# of sales % change Average. % change Median % change
Dec-19 91 1341684 1305000
Jan-20 49 -46% 1331173 -0.78% 1220000 -6.51%
Feb-20 69 41% 1376734 3.42% 1350000 10.66%
Mar-20 94 36% 1512876 9.89% 1457500 7.96%
Apr-20 48 -49% 1329940 -12.09% 1299000 -10.87%
May-20 36 -25% 1307173 -1.71% 1284500 -1.12%
Jun-20 72 100% 1384188 5.89% 1309000 1.91%
Jul-20 115 60% 1406000 1.58% 1330000 1.60%
Aug-20 95 -17% 1367498 -2.74% 1303000 -2.03%
Sep-20 127 34% 1289689 -5.69% 1220000 -6.37%
Oct-20 124 -2% 1255000 -2.69% 1193000 -2.21%
Nov-20 135 9% 1227561 -2.19% 1225000 2.68%
Dec-20 158 17% 1260960 2.72% 1234000 0.73%
Jan-21 110 -30% 1265812 0.38% 1162500 -5.79%
Feb-21 88 -20% 1291552 2.03% 1240000 6.67%