San Francisco North Bay housing market will get unseasonably scorching in March

Here’s a sign of how overheated certain North Bay real estate markets can get: A 3,200-square-foot home in the hills east of Rohnert Park was on the market for just 21 days, received seven offers, and was for $ 1.615 million earlier this month sold sold, which was $ 315,000 above the offer price.

While that seller left North Bay for Hawaii in part from fatigue with forest fires and power cuts, Bay Area buyers are coming to replace them – if they can find a home to buy, according to Jeff Schween, a Compass agent who sold it At home.

“Markets are thickening, with more demand and less supply, so there’s a gap between the two,” he said.

And that gap is widening, according to Gerry Snedaker, agent for Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Wine Country Group. The inventory of homes for sale in Sonoma, Solano, Marin, Napa, Mendocino, and Lake counties was 1,450 last month, according to the BAREIS Multiple Listing Service figures he cited. That offer is 41% below a year a year ago when the lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic turned the market for new offers on its head and last month’s inventory was only 19 more than at the end of February.

Meanwhile, North Bay sales rose 34% last month (1,858) versus February (1,386) and were 72% above the March 2020 pandemic-trapped market (1,082).

Sonoma County had 0.9 months of listings of homes and condos for sale at the end of March, given 574 month-end listings and 667 sales this month, MLS data showed. The Napa County supply decreased from two months in February to 1.2 months in March. Marin County had a 0.7 month supply last month.

Snedaker likes to gauge where pricing is headed by following the proportions of homes selling below or above their asking prices. Nationally, about a third of MLS deals sell for less than asking price, but last month that percentage ranged from a low of 17.5% in Mendocino County to a high of 21% in the North Bay, like him based on the data. And last month’s sales-to-asking ratio started at 37% of Mendocino County’s stores and rose to 54% of Sonoma County’s deals.

The North Bay real estate market is a reflection of what is happening across the country. Although total sales declined for the second straight month in March, prices remained under upward pressure, according to the National Association of Realtors. All regions in the country saw double-digit price increases, bringing the nationwide median price for existing homes to a new record of $ 329,000, up 17.2% from a year earlier, and the median for single-family homes soaring 18.4% to $ 334,500, too Record.

Robert Eyler, a regional North Bay economist from Sonoma State University, told the Business Journal that at this point in time, strong average home price growth in 2020 is expected to continue into this year.

“Low interest rates and maintaining high-income jobs (are) in the process of fueling demand,” Eyler wrote in an email.

As of the end of March, the national housing stock rose slightly to 1.07 million units, but fell by 28.2% year-on-year, reported the real estate trading group. The market time fell to 18 days, also a record low.

Schween worries about the “buyer fatigue” among all the potential buyers whose bids do not win the house keys. In this and previous boom markets, he has seen some being pushed out of the market for a while because of the emotional strain of competing for a dream home.

“I’m sure we will see this in the market, but whether it will be this year or next will be a factor in the amount of people who appear in the market,” he said.

Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction, and real estate. Prior to the Business Journal, he wrote for the Bay City News Service in San Francisco. He graduated from Walla Walla University. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.