{"id":801,"date":"2025-12-05T19:41:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/?p=801"},"modified":"2025-12-05T20:00:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:00:02","slug":"what-happens-when-rates-get-back-down-to-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/what-happens-when-rates-get-back-down-to-4\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens when rates get back down to 4 ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ok I admit it, AI is used in some of my posts. Below is an excerpt from Grok, the AI that resides within X\/Twitter when I asked the question posed above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Based on historical patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market, a drop in mortgage rates back to 4%\u2014a level last seen in 2021\u2014would likely trigger a significant resurgence in activity, including higher sales volumes, increased buyer competition, and renewed upward pressure on home prices, though not to the explosive levels of the early 2020s due to ongoing supply constraints and economic factors like tech sector volatility.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there’s a little bit of hedging in the last passage but as I have been telling folks who are on the fence because of rates “you can always refinance out of a high rate when the fed makes cuts next year but you can never reduce the extra 100k, 500k or even 1,000,000 (don’t roll your eyes, it’s happened before) you paid for your home because you chose to wait until rates went down.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly 1,000,000 over is a bit of an outlier but it has happened recently more than once. See below <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Date<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n List Price<\/th>\n Sale Price<\/th>\n Overbid Amount<\/th>\n Notes \/ Source<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
March 2021<\/td>\n Berkeley (Harvard Circle)<\/td>\n $1.30M<\/td>\n $2.30M<\/td>\n $1.00M<\/strong><\/td>\n 29 offers in 11 days; mid-century home
SF Gate<\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
June 2021<\/td>\n Mountain View (Sleeper Ave)<\/td>\n $4.50M<\/td>\n $5.50M<\/td>\n $1.00M<\/strong><\/td>\n 7-bed renovated estate; sold in 6 days
Mercury News<\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
February 2025<\/td>\n Berkeley Hills (Spruce St)<\/td>\n $795K<\/td>\n $1.60M<\/td>\n $805K<\/td>\n 30 offers; hexagonal mid-century (very close to $1M threshold)
Berkeley Homes Blog<\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
October 2025<\/td>\n San Francisco \u2013 Noe Valley<\/td>\n ~$1.30M<\/td>\n $2.20M<\/td>\n ~$900K<\/td>\n 60+ disclosure packages; one of the biggest 2025 overbids reported so far
SF Chronicle<\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

Note: Comprehensive MLS data is not public, so this table shows only publicly reported or widely cited examples that reached or came extremely close to $1 million over asking price.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I only post this as a reminder that the monthly payment is not the price and can be adjusted when rates fall but the price can never be adjusted downward after the fact so everything associated with the price, (i.e., property tax, insurance etc..etc)will be effected as long as you own the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok I admit it, AI is used in some of my posts. Below is an excerpt from Grok, the AI that resides within X\/Twitter when I asked the question posed above. “Based on historical patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market, a drop in mortgage rates back to 4%\u2014a level last seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jstaffordhomes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}