The Average Bay Area Home Sells in 22 Days, But Market Slowing

San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco still fastest markets, but noticeably less so than last spring

Over 58 percent of homes in San Francisco sell within a month of going on the market, but even that’s not a ferocious enough rate to be the fastest housing market in the nation.

That accolade goes to San Jose, where 63 percent of houses are snapped up within the first four weeks. And the number two spot? You guessed it: Oakland, where 60.2 percent sell in the first month.

Strictly speaking, those are just the houses on Trulia, who released the numbers today in a report titled “Fastest Moving Markets Slowing Down.”

Yes, believe it or not, those lightning-quick sales are actually a downturn. In April of 2015, San Francisco and San Jose were tied for the fastest market, both selling 64.5 percent of homes within four weeks, some of them so quickly that the sale qualified as a Quantum Event and left physicists bickering over whether it really happened.

Trulia

The decline of 5.8 percent in San Francisco (the second largest decline nationwide. Houston somehow managed to drop 16.3 percent) and four percent in Oakland is mirrored by the fourth and fifth place cities, Seattle and Portland, whose markets processed new offers 4.4 and 5.4 percent faster (respectively) since last year.

Casting around a bit for a more granular number, Realtor.com estimates that a home in the “San Francisco/Oakland/Hayward area” stayed on the market for 24 days before selling in March (April estimates aren‘t available yet). Down in San Jose, it’s 20 days.

But those are both down 7.7 percent and 9.1 percent since last year, which does indeed suggest that things are moving slower. Of course, the average nationwide is 75 days, and in Seattle, allegedly the next hottest market, it’s 31.

As usual with all of the recent news about a cooling housing market, there’s still a pretty wide margin for cooling to happen, after years of thermonuclear-grade activity.