April 26-27, 2025
Weekend Open Homes & Market Analysis
The weekly update from The Home Factor Team of Realtors for the weekend of Saturday April 26, 2025, and Sunday April 27, 2025.
*The specific cities and districts covered in this market analysis report are Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont, Albany, Kensington, El Cerrito, Richmond, El Sobrante, Pinole, Hercules, and Crockett.
We’re happy to provide a complete list of *all Inner-East Bay open homes for this weekend, please click here.
For Open Homes limited mostly to the Berkeley area, we're happy to share the ‘Ad Review’. The Ad Review is a private Berkeley publication of open homes. It has a pleasant format but is by no means an exhaustive list of open homes in the Inner-East Bay.
For this week’s Saturday Open Homes ‘Ad Review’ please click here.
For this week’s Sunday Open Homes ‘Ad Review’ please click here.
We’re well into our busy spring season and active inventory is way up. Last week's holiday disrupted the flow of new inventory to the market, which is a normal dynamic for major holidays, but activity rebounded this week with a bang. The weeks following Easter all the way to Memorial Day are always lively and spring season demand usually peaks this period of the year before waning slightly as we cross into the summer. Active inventory is up this weekend in all of our East Bay cities with the exception of El Cerrito. Last week we noted that Richmond appeared to be headed for a bit of trouble in terms of supply. The situation hasn’t improved. The rate at which homes are going under contract (aka absorption) has generally been outpacing supply in the Inner East Bay but is losing momentum in Richmond. We’re seeing a similar situation in Hercules. Overall though, the Inner East Bay remains a hot market. Per normal seasonality, we anticipate that inventory levels will remain elevated over the next couple of months and our focus will be on whether or not demand continues to keep pace with available listings, especially in light of economic uncertainty and Trump’s erratic and generally indecipherable tariff policy. In the past few weeks we’ve seen the lowest mortgage rates since last October, and then a total about-face to the highest rates in recent months, followed by another lowering… For the most part, the financial markets had been responding to tariff news by selling stocks and buying bonds, but when the bond market also became compromised Trump hit pause on tariffs and rates again began to lower. Mortgage rates track with the yield on bonds and rates fall when demand for bonds increases. There’s more on mortgage rates further down in the blog and for a deeper dive into the recent roller coaster please click here for a recent podcast with mortgage expert Dominic Villa of Castle Hill Mortgage. The actual impact of Trump’s economic policy on the East Bay housing market remains to be seen. We’ve had a jarring several weeks economically, but ill effects on the Inner East Bay housing market aren’t emerging just yet although anecdotally many realtors have expressed concern that some buyers are hitting pause.
What’s interesting though is just how much more inventory there is this year compared to last. That is really the big story. We’ll dive into this in greater detail next week.
The distribution of listings in Oakland with an open house on Sunday relative to the Inner East Bay as a whole is at 58% which is the same as last week and lowers our average over the past 2 months by 0.5% to 61.5%. I mention this percentage to highlight the sheer geographic size and density of Oakland. The lion's share of Inner East Bay transactions occur in Oakland.
Here’s a recap of the recent real estate market dynamics: Mortgage rates ticked up after the Fed announced its first rate cut in September, and again following the rate cut in late December. This confused the market, and sidelined some buyers, making for a challenging end to the year for many sellers. Trump has the potential to roil money markets at a moment's notice. Mortgage interest rates are not expected to fall this year unless the economic outlook becomes dire and a recession is in sight. Fannie Mae economists said Thursday Feb 20 they don’t expect rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to drop below 6.5% this year or next — a prediction in line with a Feb. 19 forecast by the Mortgage Bankers Association. In the past few weeks we’ve seen the lowest mortgage rates since last October, and then a total about face to the highest rates in recent months, and then another lowering… For the most part, the financial markets had been responding to tariff news by selling stocks and buying bonds, but when the bond market also became compromised Trump hit pause on tariffs and rates again began to lower. Mortgage rates track with the yield on bonds and rates fall when demand for bonds increases. There’s more on mortgage rates further down in the blog and for a deeper dive into the recent roller coaster please click here for a recent podcast with mortgage expert Dominic Villa of Castle Hill Mortgage. There’s more on mortgage rates further down in the blog.
It’s wise to realize that mortgage interest rates of approx. 6.5%+ are the new normal, but new homeowners can take advantage of falling rates in the coming years by refinancing property. Property values will increase in future years as mortgage interest rates decrease (at some point), and homeowners who have increased their equity with regular monthly payments, and who refi down will see their wealth increase. This is precisely how and why homeowners realize substantially greater wealth than renters in the first decade of ownership.
Pro Tip: Reach out to us to learn about, and to discuss homes that are sitting on the market longer than is healthy for their bottom line and where a deal might exist for you. It’s always a good time of year for deals on property that have not successfully found a buyer within 3 weeks of being on the market.
Let’s look at the market activity for only single family detached homes in our biggest 3 cities in the Inner East Bay: Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond.
Here’s the market activity for Oakland over the past 2 months for single family detached homes, not including condos or townhouses.The 2 month chart is in line with seasonality and our expectations of the market for this time of year. The number of available homes is up this week following last week's holiday weekend slowdown. Property is going under contract at a healthy pace although the rate at which homes are going under contract has slowed just a little in the past week. This can happen when there feels all of a sudden to be a greater amount of choice in the market. Demand in Oakland is generally quite strong and multiple offers on well priced, well located, and well presented property is an absolute given.
Here’s the market activity for Berkeley over the past 2 months for single family detached homes, not including condos or townhouses. The number of available homes is up this week following last week's holiday weekend slowdown. Property is going under contract at a terrific pace and the rate has picked up since last week. Demand in Berkeley is strong, arguably stronger than any other market in the Inner East Bay at this time. Multiple offers on well priced, well located, and well presented property is an absolute given. We’re seeing truly record setting prices for property going under contract in Berkeley in the past few weeks: As much as 80% over list price is not out of the ordinary.
Here’s the market activity for Richmond over the past 2 months for single family detached homes, not including condos or townhouses. The year started out in line with expectations, i.e., an incremental uptick in available homes, and property was selling in Richmond at an equivalent pace to Oakland and Berkeley up until this point in time. The graph all of a sudden shows a market that is performing differently from Oakland and Berkeley, and not in a good way. Demand in Richmond remains strong and multiple offers on well priced, well located, and well presented property is still an absolute given, but there are pockets of Richmond that are underperforming and the market is softening a little. For greater understanding please reach out to us. Opportunities are emerging in the Richmond market. We’ll be watching carefully to see if demand continues to wane due to economic uncertainty.
Days on market for Condos & Townhomes is longer than for Single Family Homes by quite a bit. The average days on market (DOM) for condos and townhouses in the Inner East Bay is currently at 67.5 days, up 4.5 days from last week's 63. I had anticipated a couple of months back that DOM for condos and townhomes might increase substantially by April or May. DOM 7 weeks ago was 56. Cancellations are a factor too though, and once listings hit about 90 DOM they begin to cancel. We’ve also seen a substantial uptick in the past 2 weeks for price adjusted condos.More information is available below. It's a great time to shop for a condo or townhouse in almost any part of the Inner East Bay. Most real estate agents will tell you that in a market downturn, condos and townhouses are the last residential property category to recover. Single family homes tend historically to recover value more quickly following a market downturn. Insurance concerns are causing an upward pressure on HOA dues as well, potentially putting the health of even the most financially sound HOA reserves at risk over the next several years. Please let us know if you’d like more detail on this aspect of the market.
Open Homes for Sunday, April 27: Let’s break it down:
Of the 358 single family residential homes that have an open house, 5% had a price adjustment, in multiple cities and at multiple price points. This is 2 points higher than last week and it’s an improvement over the beginning of the month, with the caveat that we’ve seen a wave of new inventory since then. The list of price adjusted property is always worth a glance, click here to see it. Price adjusted property represents an opportunity and so do canceled listings. See below for more information on cancelations.
Of the 150 condos/townhouses that have an open house, 11% had a price adjustment in the past week, almost all of them in Oakland. That’s an improvement of 5 points on last week when we saw the highest number of the year so far! Click here for the list. In various parts of the East Bay condos are continuing to lose value, consistent with a downward trend that started last year. The list of price adjusted property is always worth a glance. There continues to be significant opportunity in the current, weakened condo market in most East Bay cities for potential buyers.
Listings canceled from the Multiple Listing Service in the past 7 days:
A total of 50 listings were canceled from the Multiple Listing service in the past 7 days across all price points and cities, but with the bulk of cancellations being in Oakland. The rate of cancellations has increased quite a bit in the past 2 weeks as inventory has increased.
Cancellations reveal that sellers are pulling underperforming listings from the market, if they can afford to, in favor of possibly re-listing them later in the year, or, in some cases, renting them. Cancellations are also an opportunity for buyers because the sellers may still be open to offers, although it’s not unusual for these sellers to have unrealistic expectations. The list is worth reviewing. Click here for a full list.
Coming Soon
Click here for a list of East Bay* properties listed as Coming Soon. The number is a little higher than last week but not indicative of a large uptick in listings. It’s possible we’re reaching peak inventory for the year. These listings are hidden from consumer searches of public sites but they are mostly available to view by appointment. Please reach out to us if any of them seem interesting or noteworthy.
A quick word about mortgage rates in general since home mortgage rates have been top of mind for consumers in the past few years: Since September 2024 the Federal Reserve has cut rates by 1% but mortgage rates initially ticked up causing confusion among consumers. Federal Reserve rate cuts do not directly correlate to reduced mortgage interest rates. As more seasoned mortgage rate watchers know, a better way to understand the direction of mortgage rates is to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond. The 10-year Treasury bond yield is the interest rate the U.S. government pays to borrow money for a decade, serving as a benchmark for other interest rates and a key indicator of investor sentiment about economic conditions. The 10-year yield is used as a proxy for mortgage rates. As the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond increases, typically so too do mortgage interest rates, and as the the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond declines, mortgage interest rates typically follow the same pattern.
Just a reminder, there are some truly gorgeous houses out there to visit this weekend. You may also want to share this weekly deep dive with friends or family in the east bay who might appreciate the opportunity to visit the beautiful open homes on offer, or who, better still, might truly appreciate the consistent care and effort The Home Factor takes with interpreting the real estate market data in the east bay each week.
That’s the wrap up for this weekend! Please don’t hesitate to reach out for custom information. We’re always happy to provide it. Best way to reach us is at declan@thehomefactor.com