Finding an affordable place to live in the tech-rich Bay Area isn’t easy these days, but it sure seems to be getting easier — a lot easier. That is assuming Wolf Richter of the Wolf Street blog[1] has it right.
“It’s high time to unload houses and condos in Silicon Valley and San Francisco,” Richter wrote. “Sellers are now flooding the market with properties.”
In fact, according to data provided by the National Association of Realtors, he points out inventory has more than doubled from a year ago.
Just take a look at this chart:...
As the chart shows, the number of active listings has risen in each of the past three months, and now we’re at levels not seen since 2014. Richter says the red bars signal “bubble trouble” in the housing market. Now, we’ve got buyers refusing to participate in the bidding wars that have been a hallmark of the red-hot sector for years. “They see the prices and they do the math with higher mortgage rates, and they walk,” Richter said. “So, motivated sellers have to do something to move the properties. And they started cutting prices.” And that brings us to chart #2, which shows the number of properties for sale with price cuts has exploded by over 400% year over year.
