LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group
A for-sale sign hangs at a house in Santa Clara on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015.
The median price for single-family homes in the Bay Area set yet another record last month, reaching $755,000.
But even as the price tag went up, the number of sales went down, reflecting what by now is an all-too-common refrain in the region’s housing story: high cost, low supply.
“People are struggling to afford a home, and not finding it,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst for CoreLogic, the real estate information service that assembled the data.
June marked the fourth straight month of year-over-year declines in the number of houses sold in the nine counties. In some counties, the trend toward declining sales was even more pronounced. On a year-over-year basis, sales dipped for the fifth month in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties. In Contra Costa County, sales were down year-over-year for the third straight month.
Even so, some real estate agents pointed to a silver lining. They reported a leveling of prices in numerous communities and — continuing a months-long trend — a lot less frenzied bidding.
“Buyers are waiting — they’re pickier,” said Michael Hall, a Pacific Union agent who has an office in Palo Alto and works deals on both sides of the bay. “We still don’t have enough inventory, but the buyers are just not willing to throw down all that money. The buyers are telling us where the market is.”
Of course, it all depends on one’s perspective.
“If it’s a pause in the market, then we’re only seeing the beginning of it,” said LePage. “There’s still upward pressure on prices.”
Compared to the same period last year, median prices in the East Bay rose 7.4 percent to $550,000 in Contra Costa County and 5.2 percent to $753,000 in Alameda County. The South Bay saw more modest increases, with a 4.9 percent rise to $1,200,000 in San Mateo County and 3.7 percent hike to $982,500 in Santa Clara County.
Those are daunting price tags. Yet looked at on a month-over-month basis, June prices were actually down just slightly from May in both Santa Clara and Alameda counties. San Mateo County’s median price was up slightly from May, but fell short of the record high set back in April. Contra Costa County’s median was up a modest 0.9 percent.
Sizing up the market, Shareen Edwards, a first-grade teacher in Sunnyvale, went hunting for a house with her fiance, Joey Grant, an electrician who works in San Mateo County. They began pricing houses that appealed to them and found that a number of those houses were selling for $200,000 or more over the listing price.
“The process for looking for homes in the Bay Area — I would say it’s insane,” Edwards said.
Scaling back their search, she and Grant were guided by Hall, their agent, to a modest older house on a cul-de-sac in Redwood City: 1,800 square feet, with three bedrooms, two baths and a small backyard — a solid family house for a couple that expects to have children.
Their parents contributed to the down payment on the house, which listed for $995,000 and attracted only two offers. “If this were a year ago, there would have been five or six offers,” Hall said.
Edwards and Grant won out with a $1,042,000 bid.
“We got lucky,” Edwards said. “And our family wanted us to be successful — otherwise we would’ve been dead in the water. But this time we didn’t get outbid.”
About four years ago, Hall and Tricia Soliz, a Pacific Union agent who lives in San Ramon, teamed up to try and capture the growing East Bay market. This month, they tied the knot on a complicated deal — essentially a three-way trade among the owners of three houses, two in Danville and one in Concord.
Like a game of musical chairs, each set of owners moved to one of the other homes. Each deal hinged on the next, and negotiations dragged out.
“You could feel the market shifting,” said Hall, who believes that recent economic turmoil — first in the U.S., then in China, then in the United Kingdom — was a shock that “kind of put a cap on this incredible appreciation that we’d been seeing in the last two years.”
Buyers “are getting choosier and sellers really haven’t adjusted,” said Soliz. One of the sellers dug in, expecting an offer more reflective of the 2015 market.
In the end, each deal closed. All the new owners plan to move on the same day at the end of the month, and Soliz plans to videotape the three-way trade.
As part of that trade, Eliot and Ashley Gillum will move from Concord to Danville.
As sellers, Eliot, a sales executive in tech, and his wife found they “needed to be a little less choosy,” he said. Their 1,285-square-foot house in Concord, which listed for $499,000, sold for $515,000 after a higher offer fell through.
As a buyer, he had to stretch a few thousand dollars to make the move to pricier Danville. In the end, the Gillums, who have two young children, spent $807,000 on a 1,400-square-foot house, next to a park and community swimming pool, that listed for $795,000.
But the trade-offs were worth it, in part because Ashley, who directs an after-school program in Danville, will no longer have a lengthy commute with the kids.
“Could we be happier?” Eliot asked. “We’re not people who want the big house. We want the family time.”
Mission accomplished.
Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069, read his stories at www.mercurynews.com/richard-scheinin and follow him at www.twitter.com/RealEstateRag
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