The very first results for the Bay Area's September home selling season are in. September is usually one of the biggest times of year for sales, and this year 300 new homes came on the market in the first week after Labor Day in San Francisco alone. So how did those homes fare? Unsurprisingly, the market has stayed strong in all nine Bay Area counties according to a report from DataQuick. More homes sold around the area than in any September since 2009. In San Francisco itself there were 510 homes sold in September, an almost identical number to the 511 sold in September 2013. The median price clocked in at $938,000, on par with spring prices but 14.4 percent above last September's $820,000.
The number of sales all around the Bay Area was up 4.2 percent from a year ago, and the median sales price of $604,000 is 14 percent higher than last year's figure. Buyers who paid all cash for their homes made up around one-fifth of all sales, down slightly from 23 percent last year. The report did estimate some sales data in Alameda, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties due to data availability, but those estimations should still be representative of larger trends.
A fairly large chunk of buyers—19.1 percent—are absentee owners, and most of those absentee owners are investors. Those investors are joining with local buyers to continue to pump up demand, which looks to have stayed strong in September.
The breakdown in sales by zip code:
· Summer's Over! Will Home Prices Resume Their Dizzying Climb? [Curbed SF]
· Strongest September for Bay Area Home Prices in Five Years; Prices Flat [DQNews]
· Bay Area Housing Market Posts Strong September [Contra Costa Times]