Recent tech IPOs have reignited bidding wars on home sales in San Francisco, which rose to 35% in May from just 5% in January of 2019.
Redfin reports that offers resulting in bidding wars in San Francisco are still down 77 percent from May 2018. Nevertheless, the city is still seeing much higher rates of competition than the national average of 16 percent.
San Francisco was the most competitive metro in the nation in May, beating out the second-most-competitive metro of San Diego (24%) by over 10 points. No other metro saw more than one in five offers face competition in May.
“Bidding wars are back with a fury in San Francisco,” said local Redfin agent Miriam Westberg. “We’ve seen as many as 33 offers on one property recently, and most offers have no contingencies or are all-cash offers substantially higher than the list price. A few recent buyers have been surprised by how much competition they faced when they submitted their first offer since they heard about the slowdown at the end of last year. But it just takes that one failed offer for most to realize what they are in for. It feels like early spring/summer 2018 again.”
