It’s been a few months since I took a look at my own stompin’ ground, Noe Valley, and how prices have been doing compared to the city as a whole. We dispensed with the notion that Noe Valley was somehow “immune” some time ago. Sadly — at least for home-owners — and happily for buyers, Noe hasn’t bounced back over the last few months, even though city-wide median prices have improved.
Bear in mind that “Noe Valley” means a very small area. What’s more, there were only 7 sales in August, down from 14 in May and June, and 22 in July. Sure, there’s been a bit of an improvement over the previous month, but there’s still an 11% difference between how far prices have fallen for the city as a whole (19%) versus Noe Valley (30%).
Arrian Binnings over at Inside SF Real Estate also did a recent update on Noe Valley, looking at median prices in a different way. (I’ve forgiven him for appropriating my term, “getting granular” to discuss what I now have to refer to as “focusing” on a particular area. Sniff.) Here’s one of his charts.
Not much comfort there either.
People will continue to point out that this doesn’t mean that your beloved home has fallen in value as far as the data suggests — and that’s probably true, unless you bought a median-priced home at the top of the market. Still, Noe Valley seems unseasonably cold right now, and it’s not just the fog whipping down off Diamond Heights.
what about the sq feet? i know this is notoriously absent or incorrect from many transactions here in sf, but including it still adds value to the numbers. without the sq feet, we are left wondering about the ‘mix.’
BR: can you expand on what you mean by “the mix?” Are you thinking, for example, that if $/per sf have remained relatively stable, it means that people must be buying smaller houses if the median price has gone down?
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