Those who read Zero Hedge regularly will be aware that for us no other regional US housing market is more important than that of the San Francisco. Recall from June [9]:
When it comes to critical housing markets in the US, none is more important than San Francisco.
Courtesy of its location, not only does it reflect the general Fed-driven liquidity bubble which is the tide rising all housing boats across the US, but due to its proximity to both Silicon Valley and China, it also benefits from two other liquidity bubbles: that of tech, and of course, the Chinese $25 trillion financial debt monster, where since the local housing bubble has burst, local oligarchs have no choice but to dump their cash abroad.
It is no surprise that during ever single previous bubble peak, San Francisco home prices managed to post a 20% annual increase, starting with the dot com bubble in the year 2000, the first (not to be confused with the current) housing bubble peaking around 2005, and then the European sovereign debt bubble.
Which is why, while today's Case Shiller data was widely disappointing across the board, indicating a significant slowdown in price gains (and on a sequential seasonally adjusted basis, practically a decline), the one market we paid particular attention to was San Francisco. What we found is a red flag for everyone waiting to time the bursting of the latest housing bubble. Because after an unlucky 13 months of posting consecutive 20% Y/Y price gains, the San Francisco bubble appears to have finally burst, posting "just" an 18.2% price increase, the lowest since January of 2013.
Well, in the aftermath of yesterday's data [10]which beyond a reasonable doubt showed that the Chinese housing bubble has burst, we can now report that the "flashing red" market that is San Francisco was just smacked by a "double whammy" perfect storm, when not only was the annual increase in home prices the lowest it has been since October 2012 (but in the wrong direction), and next month the July double-digit Y/Y increase of 10.3% will once again be single digits, first positive and soon negative, an inflection which has in the past only happened when a major bubble has just burst as shown below...
[11]
... but that according to the just reported Case Shiller data, San Francisco was also the only city to see a monthly decline in house prices...
[12]
... which now also means that the ultra high end of US housing is now sliding fast, and that unless some other central banks steps up and resumes the injections of some $100 billion in outside money into inflating asset prices such as stocks and billionaire mansions, then all bets are soon off.
