Out of Order!--3Q16 Piedmont Update--

Last newsletter we talked about softening markets in San Francisco and the South Bay (but not here).  This quarter we see just a few signs of potential slowing.  From July to yesterday, 30 homes sold in Piedmont (on the MLS) at an average price of $2.328 million ($789/sf) and median of $2.134 million ($805/sf).  This compares with 26 homes selling for almost exactly $2.1 million median and mean in 3Q15 (and 44 in 2005).  The median home sold in 13 days (two weekends of open houses) though one home sold after nearly four months, dragging down the average.  The typical sale price was about 5% over asking, compared to something closer to 10% over asking a year ago.

Eight of the 30 homes sold for under the asking price--a new thing--though interestingly we also saw homes with only one offer selling for over the asking price.  Presumably the agent didn't realize that there was no competition--always important to do your due diligence!--or the sellers convinced the buyers through negotiation to up their number.  

Across the East Bay, we are certainly seeing sellers put their home on the market at an attractive, below-market number, hoping for multiple offers, but then get one or a couple offers below a number they think is fair.  Sometimes the house comes off the market, sometimes the price goes up to that magic number on the MLS, but generally, sellers have still been getting roughly what they want, perhaps after another couple of weeks, together with relate anxiety. But as we head into the more quiet 4th quarter of the year, things seem to be cooling at tad.

In our nearby Oakland neighborhoods (94610,11, 18), the average home price was $1.043 million, and $961,000 through 3Q15, an 8.5% bump. Coinci-dentally, 241 homes sold in both windows, about 20% fewer than in top-of-the-market 2005.