Just those lazy hazy days of summer. While the stock market is gyrating up and down. The housing market is doing the lazy river cruise----summer vacations, weddings and bar-b-ques. It has slowed some since June, but not appreciably. At our current pace, July could be the fourth best month since last July.

We have seen the volume of multiple offers slow. Only 14% of our total transactions had more than one offer. The most number of offers peaked at four and in some cases the winning offer was under full listing price.

Open homes, particularly in San Francisco and parts of the East Bay (Berkeley, Piedmont and parts of Oakland) are still attracting good-sized crowds. A Berkeley listing priced at $800K had a 140 buyers through its open house. A few other notable open homes were a Piedmont Ave. (Oakland) listing priced at $635K had 110 visitors; two Crocker Highlands (Oakland) homes one listed at $975K and the other at $1.195mil attracted 80 and 55 groups respectively; a Noe Valley (SF) home listed at $1.298mil. had 120 buyers and a Bernal Hts. (SF) home priced at $749K had 55 visitors. Buyers are very active in these markets. Homes that have been on the market for sometime are seeing limited traffic, except when there is a significant price reduction. The majority of open homes are attracting between 10-20 buyers. Overall positive for a summer market.

Well priced and eye-catching listings are attracting the most attention. A home in Yountville priced just under $ 1 mil. sold in 3 days. These well priced and presented listings sell quickly in spite of all the headlines. Sellers who garner offers soon after listing should heed the old saying “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. One seller in the Montclair area of Oakland received an offer during the first week on the market at 1% below asking price. They declined it thinking other offers would follow. Not so in this case. The buyer has gone away and the home has now been on the market for six weeks.