Bay Area Home Sales Hit 6-Year High - If you’re getting ready to list your Bay Area home for sale, you’re going to want to read the latest numbers carefully! Sales of homes around the Bay area are up an average of 25% from last year at this time. In fact, they’ve hit a 6-year high!
As impressive as those numbers are, they’re made even more impressive by the fact that the Bay Area is well-known for its expensive homes. In fact, only New York City is a more expensive place to buy real estate!
So, what’s causing this surge in sales?
There is a huge amount of demand, but when you combine all of those buyers with low interest rates, you have an increase like what we’re seeing here.
January is typically known as a slow month for real estate, so that makes this increase in sales even more dramatic. And with an average price tag of $435,000 per home, this surge has been no small feat! However, many experts say demand is so high because there are so few homes on the market.
With the housing market slow to recover, many people have been holding off on selling their homes. As a result, sellers here are seeing a dramatic increase in selling prices. Even million dollar homes are receiving multiple offers. Recently, one home carrying a seven-figure price tag even received 14 offers! A home with a slightly smaller asking price received 28 offers!
Record-low interest rates are making it easy for buyers to swoop in. Since most people realize that these low interest rates will not last forever, they’re willing to increase their offers in order to make sure they don’t miss out on a great opportunity.
But interest rates aren’t totally responsible for the surge here, since many of the homes around the Bay Area are selling for cash. And, with so many of the homes here getting caught up in bidding wars, the buyers offering cash have a habit of winning out!
DataQuick also reported that another reason for the recent increase in sales is investors. In fact, nearly 30% of the sales in January came from investors who either decided to take advantage of the lower prices due to the slow recovery of the housing market (at least, lower as compared to pre-recession prices!), wanted to buy homes with cash and flip them for a profit, or were interested in renting out the homes as vacation rentals.
No matter why people are scooping them up, the increase in sales and prices will hopefully signal a recovery for the housing market in the Bay Area and beyond. As people start to see their neighbors receive far more than their asking prices (as well as multiple offers and bidding wars!), they may decide it’s time to sell. In the meantime, though, sellers will get to take full advantage of prices driven up by a tiny inventory!