SAN FRANCISCO — Real estate prices are rising across the country — overall. However, looking at individual markets, some Bay Area neighborhoods show that prices are down compared to a year ago.

Average single-family home prices rose 4% year over year to $378,700 in the fourth quarter. Prices were strongest in the Northeast last quarter, up 5.3%; followed by the south with a plus of 4.9%; the Midwest by 4% and the West by 2.6%, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But if you look at the market level, it’s clear that prices in some areas are down from last year. The upbeat regional numbers obscure that about 11% of the individual housing markets tracked by NAR — 20 out of 186 cities — saw home prices fall in the fourth quarter of last year.

“Some markets could see double-digit price declines, particularly some of the more expensive parts of the country, which have also seen weaker employment and more frequent outflows of residents to other areas,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

Almost all of the most expensive places to shop are in the West, and half of the top 10 most expensive cities are in California. Several of these places are where prices fall the most.

San Jose was the most expensive place to buy a home in the United States in the fourth quarter. But that median price of $1,577,500 is actually 5.8% lower than a year ago — and prices there are already down 17% from the peak price of $1,900,000 in the second quarter of last year, according to NAR.

San Francisco saw the country’s largest year-over-year price drop last quarter, with an average price drop of $1,230,000 — down 6.1% year over year. San Francisco home prices are already down 21% in the fourth quarter from a peak of $1,550,000 in the second quarter.

Among the most expensive cities where prices fell were Anaheim, with an average price of $1,132,000, down 1.6% from a year ago; Los Angeles, with an average price of $829,100, fell 1.3%; and Boulder, Colorado, with an average price of $759,500, down 2.0%.

Other places with falling prices have seen the big price increases during the past few years’ hectic home buying market. They’re also typically attractive lifestyle destinations for people to relocate to, as remote work offers more flexibility. These include Boise, Idaho, where prices are down 3.4% year over year, and Austin, Texas, where prices are down 1.3%.

The good news for buyers looking for price relief is that the 4% average price increase in the fourth quarter is smaller than the 8.6% increase in the third quarter. In addition, the price increases are smaller, with far fewer markets posting double-digit gains in the fourth quarter.

“A slowdown in home prices is underway and is being welcomed, especially as the typical home price has risen 42% over the past three years,” Yun said, noting that these cost increases have far outpaced wage increases and consumer price inflation since 2019.

A fragmented market

For much of the pandemic, home prices across the country moved in one direction: up. Some hotspots like Austin and Boise saw prices soar. In other areas — particularly the Midwest — prices rose more moderately. However, with mortgage rates hovering near historic lows, buyers flocked.

That story changed last year when mortgage rates soared in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s historic campaign to curb inflation. Buying a house fell off a cliff. By the end of 2022, existing home sales were down nearly 18% from 2021 as prospective homebuyers exited the market, according to NAR.

Typically, a drop in buying demand would mean oversupply and ultimately lead to falling prices. But that, by and large, is not happening in the housing market.

Instead, single-family home prices rose in nearly 90% of the metro areas tracked by NAR in the fourth quarter: 166 out of 186 markets still recorded rising prices. The national median price for a single-family home rose 4% year over year to $378,700 last quarter.

How can that be?

A major reason for this phenomenon is that due to the chronic underbuild of affordable homes in the United States, there is a shortage of inventory, along with homeowners reluctant to part with the extremely low mortgage rates they have secured for the last several years have .

“Even with a projected decline in home sales this year, prices are expected to remain stable in the vast majority of markets due to extremely limited supply,” Yun said.

There are still places where property prices continue to rise at double-digit rates. The top 10 cities with the largest year-over-year price increases all posted gains of at least 14.5%, according to NAR, with seven of those markets being in Florida and the Carolinas.

Farmington, New Mexico, saw the largest price increase in the fourth quarter, up 20.3% year over year. It was followed by Sarasota, Florida, up 19.5%; Naples, Florida, up 17.2%; Greensboro, NC, up 17.0%; Myrtle Beach, SC, up 16.2%; Oshkosh, Wisconsin, up 16.0%; Winston-Salem, North Carolina, up 15.7%; El Paso, Texas, up 15.2%; Punta Gorda, Fla., up 15.2%; and Daytona Beach, Fla., by 14.5%.

How is affordability changing?

In the last quarter of 2022, a family was required to have a qualifying income of at least $100,000 to afford a 10% down payment mortgage in 71 markets, up from 59 in the previous quarter, according to NAR.

Still, there were 16 markets in which a family required a qualifying income of less than $50,000 to purchase a home, although this was down from 17 in the previous quarter. Some were Peoria, Illinois, where a family earning $33,660 may qualify for a loan; Waterloo, Iowa, with an income of $40,639; and Montgomery, Alabama, with income of $48,172.

According to NAR, the monthly mortgage payment for a typical existing single-family home with a 20% down payment was $1,969 nationwide in the fourth quarter. That’s a 7% increase from last year’s third quarter when the monthly payment was $1,838, but a big 58% increase — or a monthly increase of $720 — year over year.

This made the affordability picture even more difficult for many homebuyers. Families typically spent 26.2% of their income on mortgage payments, up from 25% in the previous quarter and 17.5% a year ago.

First-time buyers have obviously been pushed to a breaking point of affordability. They typically spent 39.5% of their family income on mortgage payments, up from 37.8% in the previous quarter. A mortgage is considered unpayable when the monthly installment, including principal and interest, is more than 25% of family income. In general, a common financial rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t spend more than 30% of your income on housing.

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The concept of single-family zoning was born from lies. Specifically, Bay Area read.

For decades starting in the late 19th century, white residents of San Francisco tried, unsuccessfully, to impose state-sanctioned segregation on their Chinese neighbors. The 1890 Bingham Ordinance, which explicitly banned Chinese residents from certain areas of the city under penalty of jail, was thrown out by the courts on equal protection grounds — as were subsequent efforts at openly racialized zoning.

Undeterred, white property owners searched for legal end-arounds. And they found one in single-family zoning. White elites had almost exclusive access to the kind of capital needed to purchase a freestanding home. And so single-family zoning became a tool for de facto apartheid, under the guise of separation of use. The idea was first implemented in Berkeley in 1916 as a tool to eject Asian-owned laundries and a “negro dance hall” from the proximity of white homeowners. San Francisco soon followed suit.

Like the Bingham Ordinance before it, single-family zoning was initially shot down by courts — for its only slightly more subtle racialized designs. It ultimately survived constitutional scrutiny, however, with the aid of a Supreme Court reversal — by the same justices who upheld “separate but equal.”

And so the practice spread throughout the country — the Bay Area’s gift to American racism.

On Tuesday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to finally end single-family zoning in the city that helped birth it. But, with the weight of history on their shoulders, did supervisors rise to the challenge of crafting a bill that earnestly addresses a century of historical wrong?

They didn’t.

Instead, their effort, like single-family zoning itself, was a cheap ploy — a not-so-subtle end-around to subvert a new California law mandating streamlined development in exclusionary neighborhoods. Despite made-for-headlines boasts about allowing fourplexes and six-unit homes on formerly single-family plots, the supervisors’ housing bill will do nothing to spur denser development in excluded neighborhoods.

And they know it.

A planning department feasibility study shows that developers trying to navigate the bill’s restrictions will lose money by the handfuls should they try to build denser housing on a formerly single-family plot.

Cue the chorus of boo-hoos. But guess what happens when developers are guaranteed to lose money? They don’t build anything.

As if to stamp home the fact their bill has no intention of breaking up a century of single-family dominance, supervisors inserted a rule that says only those living in their homes for more than five years, or those who inherited the real estate, can take advantage of new streamlined zoning rules.

What is the point of ending single-family zoning if developers aren’t actually allowed to easily build denser new housing in formerly restricted areas?

“Luxury” condos are notorious boogeymen in San Francisco. But single-family homes are the city’s most luxurious form of housing. Their median sales price is $1.95 million in 2022; that’s $700,000 more than a condo. Single-family homes, with rare concessions, are exempted from rent control — making them largely unaffordable to working families. Homeowners, meanwhile, are granted generous state and federal tax breaks. They also enjoy protections from police search and seizure that many renters do not. Home ownership in America affords a higher status of citizenship. And single-family ownership is at the top of that status.

“This is not the final statement on density in low-density neighborhoods,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the housing bill’s author, said on Tuesday.

Perhaps like that. And the board deserves praise for apparently coming to terms with Mayor London Breed on new social housing spending that could allow government to directly build more affordable units.

But that effort will provide just a fraction of the more than 80,000 new homes San Francisco needs.

As if putting a stamp on the limited scale of their vision, supervisors this week moved forward with another dubious housing measure. This one, draped in sanctimonious language of affordability, would appear on the November ballot—despite feasibility studies that, once again, show nothing will get built under the tight-fisted rules of the plan. With a wink and a nod, the measure’s goal appears to be sabotaging a competing initiative by Breed that would streamline the construction of much-needed dense, mixed-income developments.

These cheap theatrics are ideological parlor tricks in service of a status quo that is failing San Francisco.

Single-family zoning was born of racial malice and a desire to find a legally permissible end-around to integration. That malice is built into the physical structure of our communities.

Read put us here. They won’t get us out.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

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San Francisco plans to get rid of single-family zoning and instead allow fourplexes in every neighborhood and six-unit homes on all corner lots, a change long sought by housing development advocates.

But champions of greater housing density are worried that San Francisco’s legislation might result in very few new homes being built. They fear that restrictive provisions limiting who can take advantage of the new permissions and how fast property owners can get their projects approved will stymie new construction.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors narrowly approved the legislation, which is intended to alleviate the city’s notorious housing crunch. The vote marks the culmination of more than a year’s work by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman to pass legislation that would promote fourplexes in San Francisco. In early 2021, Mandelman announced a more modest plan that failed to advance. He returned last summer with a new proposal that the board passed in a 6-4 vote Tuesday, with Supervisors Ahsha Safaí, Catherine Stefani, Shamann Walton and Matt Dorsey dissenting. Supervisor Connie Chan was absent.

Some supervisors opposed the legislation because it circumvents the fast-tracked permit approval process required by a new state law — SB9 — that was passed to promote the construction of more multi-unit housing.

With the ordinance, Mandelman and co-sponsor Supervisor Myrna Melgar are trying to encourage more density while preserving local control over new development. Mandelman has acknowledged that his legislation leaves more work to be done to address the housing crisis.

“I share the frustration of those who feel that a measure that was already modest and incremental to begin with ended up even more so after working its way through the legislative process, but I believe today’s vote is nonetheless a move in the right direction for San Francisco,” Mandelman said in a statement after the vote. “Still, the reality is that this board needs to do better and be bolder if we are to have any hope of achieving the significant increase in housing production required by state law and demanded by the moment.”

Richard Hillis, the city’s planning director, said the impact of the fourplex ordinance will likely be “fairly small” as measured by new housing units. But he called the act of ending single-family zoning “a pretty big step” — at least in terms of recognizing that building multi-family rather than single-family homes is good policy.

But he added that he’s “nervous that the changes they’re making are either not going far enough, or they’re putting requirements in place that will result in too few units being produced.”

Currently, about 40% of San Francisco’s land area is zoned for only single-family homes. The ordinance rezones all those areas to allow duplexes by default. Property owners can then receive a density exception from the city that allows them to build up to four units, six on corner lots.

Any one building more than two units would have those extra units subject to rent control — a program that some developers say can make the economics of building more homes harder to pencil out.

And only those who have owned their properties for at least five years — or inherited it from a family member who did — can qualify for the density exception at all.

The latter provision, implemented in committee at the urging of Supervisor Dean Preston, could hamstring the ordinance’s ability to translate into much new development, some observers say.

Preston pushed the restriction in order to prevent rampant real estate speculation. But critics say the ownership restriction could simply push more developers toward building more expensive duplexes and single-family homes rather than more affordable fourplexes.

“That doesn’t make sense to us in terms of what we think the public policy objective should be, which is … to encourage more small units and more rent-controlled units,” said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City .

Todd David, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, said he thought the original version of the bill wouldn’t have much of an impact, but the amendments made that even more true.

“They took the original policy they knew would create little housing and they added some additional bells and whistles to ensure that it will create very little to no housing,” David said.

Additionally, the ordinance allows San Francisco to get around a key provision of SB9.

The 2021 state law lets homeowners who want to add extra units get approval through a streamlined process that bypasses city officials’ ability to use their discretion to reject housing developments. But the law applies only to areas zoned for single-family homes, so San Francisco’s rezoning of the whole city would make SB9 no longer apply to the permit approval process.

The San Francisco legislation’s end-run around SB9 was cited by Safaí and Dorsey when they explained to their colleagues why they were voting against the local measure.

“I believe it’s too small of a step,” said Safaí, who had proposed his own fourplex ordinance that was not incorporated into Mandelman’s.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and co-author of SB9, said in a statement after the board vote that, while Mandelman’s original ordinance was a “good-faith proposal,” the amended version, “sadly, doesn’t cut it.”

“The ordinance avoids SB9 without offering an alternative robust path to more housing,” Wiener said.

Even without San Francisco’s restrictions, however, SB9 likely would have had limited impact in the city, according to housing experts and a Chronicle analysis.

Mandelman has previously said he was open to discussing ways of fast-tracking permit approvals but that any such changes would have to be made by supervisors later.

“This is not the final statement on density in low-density neighborhoods,” he said Tuesday.

Hillis said that streamlining approval for fourplexes and sixplexes once the city is rezoned would likely require a ballot measure to amend the City Charter. San Franciscans are already voting on at least one amendment — possibly two — in November aimed at accelerating housing production for some projects.

Wiener said he did not believe that San Francisco could rely on its newest fourplex law to comply with its state-mandated plan to meet housing production goals. The city must plan to build 82,000 units between 2023 and 2031.

“This is further evidence that the voters are going to have to take matters into their own hands to ensure San Franciscans have enough housing to meet our city’s needs,” he said in his statement.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who supported the ordinance, said Tuesday that he was “actually kind of shocked that there is opposition to this.” He and Preston both said they believed the real reason for the resistance was that many of those in favor of more housing development also oppose rent control.

“Let’s be clear: They hate rent control and that is why they are opposing a bill that increases density in San Francisco,” Peskin said.

JD Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

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Rafael Mandelman

San Francisco supervisor Rafael Mandelman proposed law Tuesday that would allow the construction of small apartment complexes of up to four units in areas of the city currently reserved for single-family homes.

The ordinance introduced in the supervisory board meeting stipulates that the city provides for an exemption for Fourplex buildings on corner properties in residential areas that only allow single-family houses or buildings with a maximum of three units per apartment.

Mandelman said the ordinance would support more housing options for middle-income families and would modestly help alleviate the city’s housing crisis without changing the character of the city’s residential neighborhoods.

“Zoning in many parts of San Francisco was introduced in the suburban era of the 1970s, when San Francisco’s population was three-quarters of today’s population,” Mandelman said during the board meeting on Tuesday. “Since then we have grown by 200,000 people and created over half a million jobs, but only around 70,000 new apartments.”

Before being approved by the board, under the California Environmental Quality Act, the ordinance would first require an environmental review – a process that could take up to six months, Mandelman’s office said.

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I grew up in South San Francisco and just followed my husband’s employer.

While we currently live in Sunnyvale, I lived in South San Francisco for the first 32 years of my life (my husband was also an SSF resident). I grew up in this district.

Bronsteins was the first place I was allowed to go alone. We regularly return to “home” to see how some areas have developed and to look at the old and familiar areas (see always Bronstein Music). This area has made some changes but I would be very sad to see it (especially by the city council). I grew up on Grand Avenue and Pine Terrace. These areas are part of my life soul.

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In an unprecedented decision, South San Francisco is the first San Mateo County city to consider ending single-family home zoning.

South San Francisco’s city council narrowly agreed to a 3-2 vote to allow maisonettes, triplexes, and other moderately tight buildings to be built in neighborhoods traditionally reserved for single-family homes.

The Wednesday, February 24 decision puts South City on the path of other communities like Berkeley and San Jose, where officials can end exclusion zone guidelines in hopes of addressing affordability and equity concerns.

“If we are able to offer more affordable housing and also consider modern housing for the missing center, I think we need to look at all of the options,” said Vice Mayor Mark Nagales, who shared the proposal with colleagues James Coleman and Eddie Flores supported. Mayor Mark Addiego and Councilor Flor Nicolas voted against the proposal.

As part of the decision, officials will consider changing the codes for residential areas with the upcoming update to the general plan. The proposal will be presented to an advisory committee formed to oversee the update and an outreach request will be made before any formal policy changes are considered by the councilors.

Consultants hired to make it easier to update the general plan are expected to cost around $ 100,000 and delay the process by about four months.

Those familiar with the work done so far on the general plan noted that councilors had recently agreed to concentrate most of the city’s future growth east of Highway 101 along El Camino Real and in the Lindenville neighborhood on the southern outskirts .

As part of the general planning discussion, which determined where new housing should be built, consensus was reached that the single-family neighborhoods, which cover around 85% of the urban land for residential use, should be preserved.

In criticizing the new proposal, Nicolas suggested that reversing course at this late stage would be tantamount to misleading the public.

“We clearly heard from everyone what they wanted,” said Nicolas.

For this purpose, the resident Laura Fanella criticized the plan to lift the protection of the single-family home (R1).

“Please stop doing this before you move on,” said Fanella, who alleged officials moved the goalposts to community members who want to maintain their quality of life in single-family neighborhoods.

Progressive Housing Advocates took a different perspective, claiming that building additional units across South San Francisco would undo decades of segregationist housing policies.

“I strongly support the study of foreclosure removal in South San Francisco,” said Resident Darryl Yip.

These efforts are in line with decisions in cities like Berkeley, Sacramento, and Minneapolis where officials agreed to change the zone codes in single-family neighborhoods to allow for more dense development.

Beyond the equity issues, proponents claim that building additional units will help communities whose housing is constrained meet demand and ultimately lower the cost of living, which has been a burden for so many.

In San Mateo County, affordability officials appeared to have focused solely on catalyzing more transitory development near city centers. No other city has spoken about changing their zone code for single family homes.

For his part, Coleman said he viewed the exploration as an opportunity to empower private property owners while downplaying concerns that officials are interested in dismantling the sanctity of single-family neighborhoods.

“We would give our residents more freedom and control over their property and, in conjunction with that, provide people with more affordable housing,” he said.

However, Addiego maintained a more cynical perspective, suggesting that breaking the density lines could invite predatory developers to South San Francisco, where they will buy undervalued rentals, displace renters from naturally affordable homes, and rebuild a handful of new, expensive units.

“I fear the possibility of where the disorder will come first,” he said. “There is no better way to guarantee gentrification than improving homes in the zone.”

Furthermore, Addie go, who did not cover up his dismay with the decision, shared the expectation that the problem will unsettle many residents.

“There is no way I can support that. And I will warn my co-workers that this will disrupt the community in a great way. “

And while those who supported the proposal recognized that the discussion ahead may be awkward for some, they felt compelled to at least study the matter further before making a decision.

“If we get the data and it doesn’t work, we can at least say we looked into it,” said Nagales.

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WASHINGTON, 22nd September 2020 / PRNewswire / – The plumbing pipe attorney is urging large, highly regarded plumbing companies in major cities to focus some of their business on repipes for existing single family homes in a desperate need of this service. Most single family homes in The United States are over 30 years old and many of these homes are in need of replacing their entire plumbing system. Often times, when the attorney speaks to homeowners, they are stunned to learn that the 40+ year old galvanized pipe in their home is at the end of its life. They also often have the same conversation with homeowners, who are stunned to learn that their 60-year-old copper pipe on their home is also at the end of its life. What most homeowners fail to realize is that a prescription for their home is likely to cost less $ 10,000-including wall repairs. The group believes that home plumbing restoration is a potential multi-billion dollar business year across the country.

Plumbing plumbing recipe

Plumbing Pipe Advocate

Some of the piping used for scientific experiments in the 1990s through 2010 may require replacement of some of these systems, down to anything made with copper or brass plumbing fixtures China. When a buyer of an existing single family home calls the attorney about faulty plumbing – and they want to know who to sue – the attorney usually tells the purchaser who just bought the older home, “Please sue your home inspector – who had no idea which pipelines – their service life – and / or pipelines – or fittings were made China. “https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

The plumbing pipe attorney says, “We’re by far the best brand resource on the internet for broken Chinese copper plumbing (Google it). Our bottom line is that major plumbing companies in the metropolitan area need to look for single family homes – and we want to help – by raising public awareness of the problem. If a very reputable large plumbing company in the metropolitan area would like to work with us on this important initiative, please call us at 866-714 -6466. ”

Some of the first cities the Plumbing Pipe Advocate is targeting for its Repipe initiative include:

• The angel
• Chicago
• Houston
• Phoenix
• Philadelphia
• San Antonio
• San Diego
• Seattle
• San Francisco
• Dallas
• Minneapolis
• Atlanta
• Miami
• Boston
• Portland
• Detroit
• Las Vegas
• New Orleans
• Washington, DC
• Denver

As part of this “Repipe Initiative” for private households, the Plumbing Pipe Advocate would also like to support certain manufacturers of US-made plumbing pipes for private households so that US homeowners know how to identify proven products. These types of domestic plumbing pipes include PEX, CPVC, copper, and cast iron. https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

The ultimate goal of the Plumbing Pipe Advocate is to protect America’s homebuyers or homeowners from broken plumbing to plumbing pipes that need replacing due to age. The attorney urges homeowners to avoid a pavement approach to plumbing that needs to be replaced. The group urges homeowners and home builders to use only local, highly regarded plumbers and high quality plumbing pipes and fittings that are made in the United States. https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

Media contact
Michael Thomas
866-714-6466
[email protected]

SOURCE Plumbing Pipe Advocate

similar links

https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

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