Despite another record-breaking year, the Bernal Heights Real Estate market has officially cooled.

We saw a modest 5% increase over last year’s median sale price (from $1.3M in 2015 to $1.36M in 2016), which in any other market would be remarkable – but this is Bernal and we’re not like any other market. In fact, this is the third consecutive year we’ve seen slowing growth since 2012, when we experienced a record 23% gain over the previous year.

In context, prices have nearly doubled since 2011, when the median price to buy a house was only $699k, believe it or not.

On the high end, Bernal added a new member to the $3M Club in February. 1669 Alabama St sold for $3M and is the 3rd property to sell for $3M or more. There were 11 sales in the $2Ms, which is slightly more than double from the previous year, which reported 5 sales.

OUTLOOK

Barring a major environmental or economic event, our outlook for 2017 is cautiously optimistic.

Demand in Bernal is still strong for all the reasons we love it – great weather, wonderful charm and some of the best views in the city – but we seem to have a hit a plateau in terms of price appreciation for the time being.

he sharp rise of interest rates and the surprise election results shocked many buyers in the back half of 2016, even though interest rates are roughly on par with where they were in 2014.

The US’ and especially San Francisco’s economy is performing very well. As employment and wages grow, so do housing prices. A great deal of many buyer’s down payments come from the stock market so as the stock market rallies, buyer’s buying power does as well.

We expect slow growth to continue until we see another jolt to the economy.

If you’re curious about what all this means for you and your family, please give us a call. We’re happy to help!

Michael & Danielle

Michael: 415.606.2625

Danielle: 415.528.7355

For data nerds (like us) interested in exploring the data set themselves, here are the raw numbers.