Real estate listing site Redfin says in a new report that despite what you've heard, San Francisco's for-sale housing market is not the hottest in the country — not by a long shot. Instead, the study, picked up by Curbed, suggests that Denver is in fact where the action is now. Seattle and Portland take second and third place, respectively.
The site created a metric that judges how likely a home is to sell within two weeks of listing. Cities with homes the likeliest to sell in that time period are considered to have the "hottest markets" — at least according to Redfin. "In [Denver, Seattle, and Portland], and in Boulder, Colorado, more than 60 percent of homes listed this year were forecast to sell within 14 days," reads the report. "By comparison, San Francisco, which is often discussed as one of the hottest housing markets in the country, had 43 percent of homes" predicted to sell within that time.
Unsurprisingly, price plays a huge role in that. "The typical home in Denver and Portland is an incredible $850,000 less than in San Francisco," the report continues. "Portland and Denver also offer a respite from Seattle, where homes typically sell for around $90,000 more than those two cities."
Basically, people can actually afford to buy in those cities. In San Francisco, not so much.
In general, this news lines up with recent signs that San Francisco's housing market has actually been slightly cooling over the last year. Although it is important to note that "cooling" does not mean getting more affordable — rather, it's still getting more expensive, just less quickly than before.
“The combination of jobs, affordability and a desirable western lifestyle is a triumvirate that buyers are flocking to this year,” Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson explained. Apparently, buyers are finding all three of those things in Denver.
But, hey, here in SF, two out of three ain't bad, right? Right?
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