Bay Area has nation's 'fastest dropping real estate values' but it's still not a buyer's market

ByLeslie Brinkley KGO logo

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Where Bay Area home prices are heating up this summer

Experts say that despite the Bay Area having the nation's 'fastest dropping real estate values' it's still not a buyer's market.

DANVILLE, Calif. (KGO) -- A national study of home prices recently declared that the Bay Area has the fastest dropping market values in the United States. But on the ground in the East Bay, home prices are actually on their way back up this summer.

"This is the summer of uncertainty. Uncertainty about interest rates, maybe uncertainty about homeowners insurance," said David Stark with the Bay East Association of Realtors.

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Realestateagents.com put the Bay Area at the top of their list for "fastest dropping real estate values" in the nation based on data from the National Association of Realtors with San Francisco, Oakland and Hayward snagging the top spot, and San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara region coming in second.

But that's a one-year snapshot from the start of 2022 to the start of 2023. Drilling into just the last few months shows something different happening.

"I wouldn't look at some of these price trends and say there's a fire sale for real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. We've seen price appreciation in many communities in the East Bay in particular," said Stark.

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For example in Danville, the median detached single-family home sold for a whopping $2.4 million last summer. By January of this year, the median price dropped to $1.6 million. Now prices have bounced back up to over $2 million.

Fremont has also seen a big jump in median prices for single-family homes. Richmond is the only community according to the Bay East Association of Realtors where prices are still sliding.

Another twist, homeowners are tending to price their homes just at or a little below market value, leading to some properties now selling for "above" list price.

Any decrease or even sustained stabilization of interest rates could lead to this fall looking drastically different than this summer.