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Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

Just FYI, people have seen headline numbers in this Zillow report for SF market. But it is misleading. The overall housing market in Bay Area is actually stronger than pre-COVID [1] Even within SF, prices in condos are dropping but SFH are rising. So the narrative is people are moving from dense units to units with more space within the same MSAs. Which makes sense for me, as it allows people to WFH 2-3 days a week, and be in good school districts, while still commuting to office a few days

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/North-...

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Even with those caveats the narrative is complex. Some condo prices are dropping, but I'm also seeing some 3BR condos listed (not necessarily selling) for $1.6-1.7M, which is about $300K over what they were a couple years ago. Also, with the conventional COVID narrative you'd expect that houses in the hills or away from civilization would do better - but many of those houses (some in very prestigious locations like Saratoga or Los Altos Hills) are going for < $2M and sitting on the market for 6-8 months, while prices are rocketing up in Mountain View and it's getting hard to find a SFH for < $2.7M, even if it's on a tiny 6-8K ft^2 lot.

It also looks like both inventory and prices are rising, which is contradictory to standard economic theory but would make sense if we're nearing a market top.

Wouldn't Los Altos Hills be more desirable than Mountain View? Regardless of COVID or not. It's still centrally located, larger homes, larger lots, etc.

people who buy real estate in Los Altos Hills are largely unaffected by covid. And they do benefit a lot from stock market rally

I agree with you. Some fundamentals don’t shift dramatically. A condo in Pac Heights or Marina or downtown Palo Alto will continue to hold value compared to a SOMA condo

> while prices are rocketing up in Mountain View and it's getting hard to find a SFH for < $2.7M, even if it's on a tiny 6-8K ft^2 lot.

Well, it's hard to find a home on such a large lot period (size is relative). Newer SFH tend to be built on 2k-3k square feet lot sizes and go for $1.5M to $2M (Mountain View median is $1.8M actually).

Prices generally have been going down in Mountain View (https://www.zillow.com/mountain-view-ca/home-values/) and remain considerably below their mid 2018 peak. (And still remain a bad deal relative to renting, but that's another story)

Size is absolutely not relative. Size in California and the rest of the country is measured in feet. That said, I single out this comment to prove the obvious abuse of the English language.

This was my primary question as well with the Zillow report. I could have missed it, but I didn't see how they define "urban" vs. "suburban" markets. I mean, in Austin TX, only the very downtown urban core has typical high rise apartments and condos that, anecdotally, I've seen become much less desirable in coronatimes, while there are lots of single-family-home neighborhoods (which were already getting exorbitantly expensive pre-Covid) that are still very centrally located. If those neighborhoods are considered 'urban' it would throw off the whole analysis.

Side note: SF doesn't have school districts based on where you live. Students are assigned a random school somewhere in the city.

What is SFH?

probably single family home

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