September 2024 Newsletter

September 2024 Newsletter

Welcome to my newsletter, the summer is over, the kids are back in school, empty nesters are taking well deserved vacations and taking advantage of the decrease in tourism for the fall with less crowds and I am back to work as your real estate professional working to better the lives of my clients

Real Estate Update

Mortgage Market Summary

If you haven’t heard yet, Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve Board (The Fed) and the Federal Open Market Committee chose to lower its key overnight borrowing rate by a half percentage point, or 50 basis points, amid signs that inflation was moderating, and the labor market was weakening. “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” the Federal Reserve statement said.

That said, and thankfully they have been able to bring the overnight rates down, the mortgage market has been anticipating this change for a little while (baking in the lowering of rates) and over the summer the average interest rates on purchase money have gone down.

Market and Industry News

The mortgage market and buyer broker compensation has been dictating buyer activity in recent months, if you haven’t heard by now, there are lots of changes happening in the way Realtors get compensated. I am going to try and make it understandable and compact in reading.

The old way: In the past and seemingly forever past, sellers were required to offer buyer broker agencies a cooperating compensation for the listing to be published in the MLS. The MLS is and was nothing more than a vehicle to offer real estate to buyers and compensation to buyer agent brokers. An offer. The rules said that to be published an offer of compensation would be required. A lawsuit in Missouri by a group of homeowners brought suit against Realtor Associations and MLS organizations claiming they were paying too much in commissions and was unfair to them, costing them more money than need be. They won their suits, and most major real estate organizations settled with the plaintiffs, including Coldwell Banker. Commissions have always been negotiable with sellers and there has never been an industry mandated commission rate. The 6% commission was never set in stone and seller have always been able to negotiate when signing listings.

The new way: Because of the rules changes, sellers are now NOT required to offer compensation to cooperating buyer agent brokers for their listing to be published in the MLS. Buyer agents are now required to have a formal buyer agreement with buyers with a commission or rate explicitly stated before showing property and writing offers. The old way the buyer and agent had trust between them to make the deal, now there still is trust between the parties with less chances of hurt feelings if the buyer goes away. The buyer is now going to be responsible for compensating their agent. However, the seller still can offer compensation to the cooperating broker and if it differs from the agreement with the buyer the compensation can become a meld of the two agreements. I know it sounds a little complicated but I think this will actually have a good effect on the buying and selling process, we’ll see how the actual money amounts will change, if any.

Please let me know if I can explain the situation to you.

The Local Real Estate Market

As you can see with the running 3 year number of sold listings that the volume is down and trending down, there will be a better surge this fall, I believe, because the lower interest rates will free more people to not only buy houses but also sellers will be able to more easily move up to a larger home. Please make this happen 🙂

September 23, 2024

The Consumer Price Index rose 2.5% over the past year, August 2023 to August 2024, The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 2.5 percent, the smallest over-the-year increase since the 12 months ending March 2021. 

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_sanfrancisco_msa.htm

A recent sale of mine, 101 Lombard Street, #109W, a beautiful two bedroom, two bath condominium located in one of the finest buildings on the San Francisco Waterfront.

Finance

https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms

The mortgage market is starting to come alive with many different programs tailored not only to W-2 earners but also self-employed people with programs that take into account, cash-flow, assets vs only income, equity in other real estate, low money down programs that appeal to first-time home buyers, plus other programs that are made to fit the individual borrow’s personal situation. The key interest rate on 30 year fixed loans are trending down with the upsurge in the number of listings available in the “fall market”. The chart above illustrates the trend, Yay!!!

Football

I have to say that I still enjoy watching the NFL where the level of play is of course, the best, The Niners are off to a rocky start after their recent loss to the Rams, but they did have a few key players on the sideline which hurt their chances of victory. They should all be back off their injuries soon but the team must find a way to win without them. My hometown Giants have the same record as the Niners but I have to say I don’t have the same confidence in them as I do our San Francisco team.

Thank you

Thank you for your continued support and referrals, I always greatly appreciate your referrals and feel much gratitude in helping my clients sell or purchase real estate. Please let me know how I may be of assistance whether it’s real estate or if you need referrals to the Trades or professional services, I have an extensive resource list that I am very willing to share with you.

Gary F Saydah

Broker-Associate

Coldwell Banker Luxury Realty

415-505-1999 | gary.saydah@cbrealty.com | garysaydah.com
Cal DRE #01488727 | 1560 Van Ness Avenue 2nd Flr., San Francisco, CA 94109