Real Data SF

Another glorious winter’s day in San Francisco.  My family and I biked over the GG Bridge to Sausalito and then took the ferry back to Fisherman’s Wharf. Thirty-five years in this town and I’ve only done that ride twice.   The previous time was a week ago, to celebrate my 10 year old son’s new birthday [...]

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Does anyone really know what’s going on?  Despite the gloom and doom of my recent posts (Waiting for the Other Sheep to Drop, Alphabet Soup:  What Shape will the Recovery Take?), the latest publication of the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) on Tuesday trumpets:  “Fifth Consecutive Increase!”  The LEI is supposed to predict economic [...]

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For the quarter century (gulp!) that I’ve been involved in real estate, the conventional wisdom has always been that condo values generally do worse in down markets than homes.  Why?  To be honest, I’m not sure, but I think it’s because it’s easier to overbuild the condo market than the single family home market.  It [...]

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Now hold on there, matie!  Basic economic theory  says more supply than demand, prices will fall, right?  Well take a look at this graph. It shows the absorption rate of single family home listings from January 2006 through December 2008 plotted against median prices (click to make it bigger):

“Absorption” is basically the number of weeks [...]

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