With home prices now implying that only 10-20% of residents can afford the "median" priced home, it's certainly not difficult to understand why demand may be waning.     

According to HousingWire and a new report from PropertyRadar, home sales in the Bay Area are finally starting to rollover with Q3 YTD volumes down 10.3% YoY, reflecting the fewest number of homes sold over that same time period since 2008.  Perhaps even more staggering is that distressed property sales fell 35.7% YoY so far in 2016, to the lowest level since 2001, as "low-priced" inventory dried up and buyers have found it financially impossible to move up to higher price tiers.

Conversely, non-distressed property sales fell 7.1% on a year-over-year basis. But it should be noted that as a percentage of total sales, distressed property sales accounted for only 7.9% of total sales, compared to 11.1% in 2015 and a high of 56.3% in 2009.

"The 35.7% decline in distressed property sales drove the overall decline in Bay Area sales to its lowest level since 2001," said Madeline Schnapp, director of Economic Research for PropertyRadar.