The San Francisco Bay Area is showing some warning signs of a bubble, according to Collateral Analytics’ California Home Price Forecast Models.
However, it's important to clarify that this is only happening in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company said.
“When discussing price bubbles, we feel that there are few terms which are more widely used and less understood,” says Michael Sklarz, president and CEO of Collateral Analytics, a provider of comprehensive automated valuation solutions and real estate.
Collateral Analytics explained that some economists and real estate observers are trying to sensationalize an issue that does not exist.
The Home Price Forecast Models indicate no national or metro-level housing bubbles, but identify several San Francisco ZIP Codes that are showing potential signs of a bubble.
Particularly, Silicon Valley has experienced several issues, which include increased wealth from a booming IT industry, international demand for real estate, limited supply and low interest rates, which have led to ‘price bubble’ characteristics in a number of local markets.
This isn’t the first bad news report to come out for San Francisco.
According to a market report from analytics firm Clear Capital, while San Francisco’s and San Jose’s year-end growth rates are projected to remain positive, at 3.4% and 3.2%, growth for both regions through the second half of 2015 is forecasted to fall into negative territory, at -0.2% and -0.4%.
“In our June report, we went on record with concern of bubble markets across the U.S. Now San Jose is starting to go the way of San Francisco, at peak levels and now leveling off. Both San Francisco and San Jose have been red hot markets, supported in large part by strong job growth,” said Alex Villacorta, vice president of research and analytics at Clear Capital.
“The latest numbers reveal, however, that both markets have reached their apex in the most recent upward price swing and are projected to take a slight dip into negative territory through the second half of 2015, by -0.2% and -0.4%. While both markets are projected to have total 2015 yearly growth rates of around 3%, entering winter 2015-2016 on the down side is of great concern. What started as ‘red hot’ at the start of 2014 may end as ‘in the red’ come 2016,” continued Villacorta.
