Oakland, California, now surpassed surrounding cities to become the area’s most heated real estate market, according to an article by Alison Vekshin for Bloomberg.
During the first half of the year, single-family home and condominium sales dropped 10.3% in San Francisco from the same period last year, bringing home sales to their lowest point since 2008.
From the Bloomberg article:
“Something we had to wrap our head around really quickly was the fact that we were automatically going to bid at least 30 percent over asking,” said Smith, a 50-year-old strategy consultant who moved from San Francisco in search of more space for her family’s three kids. “It’s the new normal."
Oakland’s housing market is still soaring even as growth cools in San Francisco, where million-dollar median home prices have left buyers searching for more affordable alternatives. The East Bay city had California’s highest annual appreciation of home values and the biggest rent growth of the 50 largest U.S. cities as of June, according to data compiled by Zillow.
Currently, although the prices are rising rapidly, housing in the city is still more affordable than San Francisco, for now.
Just one month after posting a nearly four-year high, home sales in California took a step backwards in the month of July, with year-to-date sales falling from previous year for first time in 18 months, according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors.
From the article:
Houses are selling fast — and far above list prices. The average home in Oakland sold for 17 percent more than asking in the second quarter, according to data from Paragon Real Estate Group measuring properties that didn’t go through a price reduction first. That compared with 9 percent for San Francisco and 5 percent in Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Oakland homes were on the market an average of 20 days, fewer than the 34 days in San Francisco.
