Bay Area home sales tank 10 percent in August – slowest pace in 7 years | Hacker News Reader

Bay Area home sales tank 10 percent in August – slowest pace in 7 years

cnbc.com

18 pointssmaili7 comments

The headline is written as though the market is tanking, but "the median price for all Bay Area homes sold in August was $830,000, up 12.4 percent annually" -- fewer homes are selling because they're so expensive, but it isn't causing prices to decrease. They're still going up.

Sales volumes are down. Prices aren’t. Sellers are largely waiting things out because why sell now when prices will be even higher in a year. And likewise most buyers have fled the market because the low inventory and price appreciation have made housing options increasingly unappealing.

Maybe buyers are buying elsewhere, like out of state.

I wonder how much of this is due to recent fires and abysmal air quality... it's bad enough here that if I were still seriously considering moving out of area , I might have made the leap.

AQ is so bad I simply don't exercise outdoors as much... and it's not clear when it's going to get better.

What stopped you from moving out?

Massive change for kids, aging parents nearby and friends... not to mention one of us will have to find work wherever the other one goes.

It's a big change if you've put down roots.

> I wonder how much of this is due to recent fires and abysmal air quality... it's bad enough here that if I were still seriously considering moving out of area , I might have made the leap.

Wow no! This is one of the financially savviest regions in the world. The prices of homes are far too inflated and the current salt taxes + interest rate increases is causing a lot of hesitation in buyers. One gets trapped with these taxes and mortgage payments.

Further, a lot of the increase in asset prices was Chinese investment and immigrants, both drying up. The trend is slowly going down. Why slowly? Because homes are lagging indicators.

Make no mistake though, a few IPOs and the asset prices will get some cushion again.

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