Bay Area Homes Sales Grow for for First Time in Two Years

When mortgage rates dipped this year, Bay Area home buyers stepped up and started to make offers on homes — the first rise in home purchases following two years of declines.

Sales across the nine-county region grew 9 percent to 49,500 homes from January to November, compared to 45,600 last year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

New listings during the period also grew by 14 percent, to 63,500 from 55,900.

If interest rates hold next year, the Bay Area could defend its gains for single-family homes, condominiums and small apartment buildings.

“There’s low inventory, so if a house checks all the boxes, it’s selling very quickly with multiple offers,” Josh Felder, a Bay Area-based Redfin agent, said in a recent report. “There is a lot of money in Silicon Valley.

“You’d think there would be a finite supply of people who have $3.5 (million)-$5 million for a home, but apparently not. They just keep coming.”

The Bay Area spurt in home sales bucks the national trend, where sales were flat from a year earlier, according to Redfin.

By county, home sales in Santa Clara rose 17 percent, San Francisco and San Mateo 11 percent, Sonoma 9 percent, Alameda 7 percent, Contra Costa 5 percent and Marin 1 percent.

Sales in Solano County stayed flat, while Napa County home sales fell by 1 percent.

Home sales in Silicon Valley towns such as Belmont and Los Altos Hills rose by as much as 40 percent since last year. Sales in San Jose rose 17 percent, Atherton 11 percent and Oakland and Berkeley by 4 percent.

It was also a record year for blockbuster home deals, led by Laurene Powell Jobs’ $71 million purchase on San Francisco’s Billionaire’s Row.

Since declining this summer, mortgage rates have stalled, with the Federal Reserve saying it’s weighing two interest rate cuts next year instead of the four previously projected.

— Dana Bartholomew