S&P Case-Shiller publishes 4 main home price indices for the 5-county San Francisco Metro Statistical Area: the low price tier, the middle price tier, high price tier and an aggregate index. The new report for August 2011 was released today: For the SF MSA, the low and middle price tiers showed small declines in values, while the aggregate and the high price tier pretty much stayed the same. (Actually, the high price tier went up the tiniest bit, but not enough to change the rounded-off reading from 144.3.)
The high-tier price index – houses over $608,000 – is the one that most applies to the city and county of San Francisco itself: About 62% of the city’s house sales are over $608,000. If we exclude the 2 less affluent southern districts, running from Bayview to Oceanside, which have been hard hit by distress sales, the percentage of SFD sales in the city’s 8 central and northern districts that is in the high tier is over 84%. If we exclude distress sales (bank-owned and short sales), that percentage goes to 90%.
The values indicated on the charts reflect today’s values compared to the values in January 2000. Thus, August’s reading of 144.3 indicates a value 44.3% above that of January 2000, and 22% below that of January 2006. August is typically one of the slower months of the year for sales activity.
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