Housing market dips a bit?

Two days in a row we get to quote Kelly Zito from the Chronicle! Today's article uses a bit of the info from yesterday, as well as a couple of interviews with area real estate-types.

She actually came by my open house in Noe Valley on Sunday (which she refers to at the end of the article), but none of my wisdom was actually imparted to Chronicle readers. What a shame! :-)

I know that when one looks at Bay Area-wide numbers (or statewide numbers as she did today) you might feel that things have shifted a bit. But again, as I mentioned yesterday, this is all a function of inventory and speculation. The speculators have left the market. This has created a sense of slowing, but that only lasted a month and it happens EVERY YEAR around this time, then August hits and the inventory drops to ridiculously low levels. Guess that's because everyone is hypothetically on vacation. Except, of course, for the 400 people that came through my open house last weekend...

The Examiner also jumped on the media bandwagon this morning with quotes from a bunch of SF real estate folks.

I know it will come as a surpise to many of you, but I really don't agree with what the Examiner article is saying. Multiple offers and over-asking sales prices are nothing more than a function of pricing. Speculative sellers who insist on over-pricing their properties will lead to this type of data. We're not talking about housing prices slipping. This is about one month of greedy sellers not getting what they want because they asked too much. Period.

Is the market as hot as it was in March? Definitely not. But that's because the spring is a different market. Although based on what I'm seeing right now (this week, in August), we could see some of that same activity for a couple of weeks before the flood of inventory after Labor Day.