San Francisco Unseated as Hottest Housing Market by Denver

Is San Francisco no longer America’s go-to city? Have we been unseated by, of all places, Denver, Colorado?

That’s what the real estate aggregate site Redfin would have us believe. Their Hottest Housing Market report for June proclaims Colorado the hottest city in the country, followed by Seattle and Portland. As for us, well, we didn’t even crack the top 20.

Note that San Jose, Oakland, and Santa Rosa were numbers eight, ten, and fifteen, respectively. It’s almost enough to make you feel snubbed.

Redfin dubs a market hot based on how many homes in that city (listed on Redfin, mind you) its algorithm predicts will sell within 14 days. Nearly 70 percent of Denver homes will go at least that fast, according to Redfin, versus 43 percent here.

Algorithms are well and good, but how do the predictions hold up? Well, Redfin houses sold in an average of eight says in Seattle, Portland, and Oregon last month. In San Francisco, it was a 19 day lead time. The national average was 47.

For some outside vetting, Redfin competitor Realtor.com has a slightly different view. According to them, a home sells after 25 days on average in San Francisco and in Seattle, but Portland is 30, and 34 in Portland.

But Realtor also lumps the East Bay in with San Francisco and some suburbs into Seattle and Denver, so it’s not a one to one comparison with the other data.

Here’s the catch: Realtor also says that the lead time on a house sale in the Bay Area did indeed increase 4.2 percent last month (about one day). Denver’s, on the other hand, went down 3.2 percent, Seattle 3.9, and Portland’s a whopping 8.1.

So both sites agree that the houses here aren’t selling as fast as they used to. They also both agree that the houses are still really, really expensive.

Are prices finally going to start dropping to match the decline in demand and bring relief to a city that for the most part doesn’t want to be the hottest in the nation anyway? We’ll be the first to let you know.

• Hottest Markets, June [Redfin]
• San Francisco trends [Realtor]