This article has been updated to reflect recent changes in the San Francisco Bay Area housing market. Motivated home buyers drove prices and sales up in October in a tight housing market. As mortgage rates hit another record low in October, homes are being snatched up quickly, with bidding wars driving Bay Area home prices well above asking prices. The median sale price of an existing Bay Area single-family home climbed to $1.1 million in October, which was up 3.8% from September and 17% higher than last October.

These trends are defying the usual slowdown that hits the real estate market in the fall. The summer buying season has carried over to the fall and is in full swing. According to C.A.R., Bay Area's housing price growth was the second-largest price increase in the state of California after the Central Coast that led the pack with an increase of 25.9 percent (YTY).

Within the Bay Area housing market, San Francisco was the only county with a drop in price, with its median price declining 1.5 percent from October of last year. All counties of the San Francisco Bay Area except Solano experienced year-over-year sales gain in double-digit percentages with Santa Clara posting the highest sales growth of 32.4% followed by San Mateo (29.1%).

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The California housing market took a breather in October as home sales and price gains declined as compared to the previous month but still recorded double-digit increases from a year ago. Despite a minor decline in the off-season, the consistent V-shaped recovery points to the housing strength for several more months. Intense demand has pushed home-value & sales growth to record levels in the California real estate market.

Mortgage rates are at record lows and builders are having trouble keeping up with the demand. After setting new record highs for four straight months, the median home price dipped on a month-to-month basis for the first time in five months, as reported by C.A.R. The median price for all homes sold in California fell only 0.2% to $711,300 down from September’s record high of $712,430.

Home sales dipped 1.0 percent from September, yet they are still 19.9% up from a year ago. The total sales in October climbed above the 400,000 level for the fourth straight month since the outbreak of the pandemic. C.A.R.’s monthly Consumer Housing Sentiment Index for November found that 59% of consumers believe it is a good time to sell their home, up 3% from last month and up 11% from last year.

Home-buyers across California’s biggest cities such as Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento, and San Francisco are among the most active in purchasing real estate. These markets saw the biggest jump in new mortgages during the third quarter of 2020, according to research by ATTOM Data Solutions.

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The Portland housing market is sizzling hot. Despite the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic, the Portland real estate market continues to connect buyers to sellers. In October, 3155 residential properties in Portland metro area changed hands, according to the latest report by the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors®.

The inventory is so tight in this housing market that the median sale price rose to $435,000, an increase of $1,500 from September 2020. There’s a lot of competition among real estate buyers in Portland due to the extreme shortage of available homes for sale. Although new listings were up from the previous month the coronavirus has also significantly reduced the number of homes for sale in the Portland metro area.

In a tight housing market like Portland, it can take some time to find a property that meets all of your criteria. According to Realtor.com, in October 2020, the median list price of homes in Portland, OR was $500K, trending up 8.7% year-over-year. The median sale price was $488,400. Ideally, a buyer would prefer a sale to list price ratio that’s closer to 90% but homes sold for approximately the asking price on average (Sale-to-List Price Ratio: 100%).

This shows that Portland is a seller's real estate market, which means there are roughly more buyers than there are active homes for sale. The higher buyer turnout and low inventory is favoring sellers. On average, homes in Portland sell after 47 days on the market. The trend for median days on market in Portland, OR has gone up since last month, and slightly down since last year.

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Nashville housing market remains one of the hottest markets in the US. Despite the pandemic led economic slowdown, there is healthy demand to purchase homes in the Nashville real estate market. Across the nation, we have seen people moving from big cities to the suburbs. Nashville too has seen an influx of buyers coming from larger markets like Seattle, New York, and California.

Another factor of increase in the out-of-state homebuyers is that Tennessee is one of only seven states that does not impose an income tax and one of two that doesn’t collect tax on earned income. This has increased the demand in many folds. High demand and low inventory are leading to the rise in home prices in Nashville at a fast pace.

This is a great trend for For Greater Nashville sellers. Currently, the inventory remains low and the prices will continue to rise for the next twelve months (check our 2021 forecast). Interest rates are at an all-time low making things a bit easier for the buyers in this fast-paced seller's market. For buyers, Nashville's quality of life and relative affordability compared to the rest of the country makes it a great place to invest or buy a house nonetheless. 

There were 4,364 home closings (res plus condo) reported for the month of October according to figures provided by Greater Nashville REALTORS®.  This figure is up 17 percent from the 3,742 closings reported for the same period last year.  The median price for a residential single-family home was $349,000, and for a condominium, it was $245,000.

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Seattle housing market continues to see low inventory and high competition making things hard for homebuyers. Even before the virus hit the region, it was quite evident that if the inventory crunches further, affordability will become a bigger issue in the Seattle real estate market in 2020, especially with homes in the lower tier.

Since then we've seen significantly lower numbers of active listings when compared to the same time last year. October 2020's housing report from Northwest Multiple Listings Service found King County had 3,806 active listings, a 20.84% drop from the same time last year when there were 4,808 active listings.

In Seattle itself, though, demand seems to be cooling off very slightly. Here, the median price of single-family homes fell 2% from September’s all-time high to $800,000, which was still a 3% increase over last year. It had 1,521 active listings in October, a 15.97% increase year-over-year.

Pending and closed sales in King County were both up as compared to the previous year. King County saw a 19.37% increase in pending sales over the same time last year. Closed sales were up by nearly 40% compared to October 2019.

In Seattle itself, it recorded an increase of 39.93% in closed sales and 19.21% in pending sales. Most homes on the market sell within a week, according to Redfin. Pending sales are outpacing new listings and inventory continues to shrink. There are far more buyers than there are available homes for sale.

To summarise the last month's statistics we can say that All King County & Seattle remains a seller's real estate market with only 0.99 months of inventory — still well below what is required to meet the volume of buyers right now. While we may see sales cool down over the coming months from an unusually hot fall season but things could be extraordinary hot in the spring of 2021.

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