GLEN PARK REAL ESTATE – October Recap

by Amanda Martin

Brighter mornings and darker nights now that we’ve made it past daylight savings time, and it is a bit of a tumultuous time here in our fine city (and country for that matter). Lots of speculation going on, and frankly, I don’t intend to take part in too much of that on this day. I’m working on regrouping my own expectations and I’ll need a good amount of time to gather my thoughts before trying to make any predictions.

Here’s what I do know–there are people out there waiting for rates to go down more, or waiting for more inventory to hit the market. (Citywide, we are down 27% on inventory for single family homes, but up in sales by 21% for the same time period last year.) Properties are moving quicker and there is less to choose from. One interesting aspect that has come up many times in conversations lately with colleagues is that buyers seem to be more suspicious than ever of properties that have spent much time at all on the market. It used to be 3 weeks was when a property would start to get “stale.” Now it feels like it’s even started right before you hit the 2-week mark. Perhaps a result of our ever decreasing attention spans? At any rate, my point is that pricing a property properly is very important right now.

For the month of October in Glen Park the percentage of Sale Price over List Price averaged 11.43% over. People expect to pay over the list price for a property and so if you price too high you won’t get the traffic quickly enough and then you risk passing the crucial 2-week mark when the perception of your property starts to change in buyers’ minds. Pick a great realtor to work with–there are so many great agents in San Francisco–and trust their professional judgement on pricing to give yourself the best chance for success.

Another item of interest: As expected the feds cut the overnight rate by a quarter percent, but we don’t expect that to have much of an effect on the mortgage market, so don’t hold your breath on that. Last time when they made the large cut of a half a percent, we paradoxically saw a raise in the interest rates for mortgages. This time I’m anticipating perhaps a slight downward movement, but nothing significant right now. For more information on this topic, click here.

As I mentioned last week, my podcasting partner Ying and I had the great pleasure of interviewing your very own President of the Glen Park Association, Hilary Schiraldi. Our Glen Park episode of The Bay Insider will be released on November 13th, so make sure to check it out! Would love to hear your feedback. Also, we are always looking for enthusiastic neighborhood residents or business people to interview for our neighborhood series, so if you know someone that would be great for a particular neighborhood, please reach out!

Now, for the Glen Park Transactions/Listing for the month of October.