Overbidding on SF homes surges to four-year high

Homes are flying off the listings in San Francisco, where they sold at a four-year high of 122 percent above asking prices last month and sat on the market for 20 days – 10 days less than in January.

That’s according to a Compass report that revealed the city’s existential imbalance between supply and demand has only worsened. Overbidding has been on the rise since January of last year, when the average stood at 104 percent over the ask.

Crowded house tours and people willing to overpay show the true challenge for Bay Area real estate isn’t rising interest rates or concern that Russia’s attack on Ukraine could widen: It’s simply not enough houses, the report said.

True, the percentage of homes being overbid on is down slightly from October, standing at about 70 percent compared with a post-pandemic high that month of 75 percent. That figure had dropped to 55 percent in mid-winter. And median home prices have also inched down, to $1.75 million in February from $1.8 million in January.

Yet Bay Area prices aren’t slowing down. In San Mateo, prices have jumped 18 percent from 2020 to $2 million. They climbed even faster in Alameda, where prices rose 24 percent to $1.25 million. They increased by at least a fifth in San Benito and Contra Costa.

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