For Serkes, the sale that made him sit up and take notice happened more recently. On May 15, a five-bedroom home at 1551 Hawthorne Terrace in North Berkeley closed escrow at $2.69 million on an asking price of $1.9 million after receiving five offers.
Serkes has collated data that show that the median overbid for all sales in Berkeley is currently running at 13 percent above asking price. For homes that are selling for $1 million and above, the median is 20 percent above asking price. Several overbids have been worth over $500,000, he said, as evidenced by the examples cited above.
Joann Sullivan, a realtor at Thornwall Properties, said buyers have been waiting for a long time to pounce but that they are no longer willing to wait.
“They have been watching interest rates come down and they are ready now,” she said. (Although interest rates are still historically low, they have ticked upward in the last month.)
Serkes agrees: “Buyers recognize the prices have turned around and are back on the way up. Buying now means that they’ll get into the home at a better price than in the future.”
The trouble is that the inventory of homes for sale in desirable neighborhoods is limited. Sullivan attributes this to the fact that sellers also have been playing a waiting game — many of them afraid to list their homes for fear that they would not make their money back on prices they paid at the height of the market. The result: rising prices and competition. Sullivan’s office is routinely seeing 12-15 offers on its listed homes.
In addition, a significant proportion of the buyers real estate agents are working with are paying cash. Serkes said that last year, 38 percent of his client transactions had all-cash buyers. Sullivan puts the percentage at her office between 25 and 30 percent.
Certain buyers are also doing their homework so they can pounce on a coveted home with speed. “Buyers are making cash offers with no financing and no contingencies,” said Leverette. “They read all the disclosures and get all the inspections in ahead so they can move quickly.”
Serkes adds: “When you have the cash you can often pay more and you just want to be settled, so you do.”
Many of the $1 million-plus homes that are selling in Berkeley are closing escrow just weeks after the first of perhaps only one or two open-house showings. The 1930s Mediterranean home at 2911 Avalon Ave. in Berkeley’s Claremont Court sold for $2.5 million this week on an asking price of $2.1 million after just 40 days. And it took just 25 days for 2900 Forest Ave. to sell on April 30 — for $1,854,000 on a list price of $1,495,000.
Of course, this can make life difficult for a potential buyer who is simply looking to buy a home and needs to go through the usual mortgage approval process. Leverette said many of her clients are having to put up to ten offers on different homes before they succeed in securing one. “It can be hard,” she said.
So who are these cash buyers? Clearly they have funds. They are often young, too. Leverette said she’s seeing Generation Y first-time buyers, many of them working in tech or biotech. She said there is also a lot of Asian money, and buyers coming in from Canada.
Sullivan echoed this view: “There are lots of buyers from the tech world and from the Pacific Rim,” she said, adding that the latter are often looking at properties principally as investments. While most people would say Bay Area home prices are plain silly, they may be less silly to people coming from cities such as Hong Kong or London. Globetrotters who base themselves in the Bay Area but travel all over the world for work are common, too.
“Just when you thought you had prepared your buyers for escalating prices, here comes another one to break the last record, ” said Anthony Riggins, a realtor at East Bay Sotheby’s, speaking of this week’s $2.4 million sale on Piedmont Avenue.
But, said the professionals, this is not another bubble. The key difference compared with pre-2008 is that the market is not being buoyed by high-risk loans. “This is not familiar territory,” said Leverette. “There’s often no financing involved at all.”
Asked which areas he thinks are particularly hot right now, Riggins, who said he is swamped with listings and buyers, pointed to The Uplands, a street in the heart of the Claremont neighborhood. “The power of The Uplands might be the one area in the East Bay where you don’t see the prices stabilizing anytime soon,” he said. “Everyone always mentions [the city of] Piedmont as the most stable market and/or best investment. The sales in The Uplands this year might be proving otherwise.”
In October 2012, 60 The Uplands sold for $1.85 million on a list price of $1.45 million, while the next month 130 The Uplands fetched $1.379 million on an asking price of $1,089 million.
Leverette cites the Claremont area, Thousands Oaks, North Berkeley and Rockridge as being particularly sought-after, while Sullivan mentions Albany. “Prices are way up over there,” she said.
