>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. kristen: "getting answers". everyday, we talk about experts with issues important to the bay area and we get answers in real-time. today, superstar madonna was called unrecognizable and criticized for looking different at the grammys. but advocates say it is ageism and sexism, and they are pushing back. best-selling author witchel simmons will join us. today's explosion and fire in the sunset district underscores the dangers of being a firefighter. but as our media partner the san francisco standard uncovered, a new cancer screening test has revealed an additional health risk. we will talk with a reporter to

see what is being done about it. but first, the bay area is reversing a longtime trend. the first time in 11 years, the average home in the san francisco metro area is selling for less than its asking price. joining us to discuss this, whether the signals rough times ahead, is redfin chief economist darrell fairweather. welcome back to the show. >> thank you for having me. kristen: this is big news. for the first time in 11 years, homes are averaging less than asking area how much below asking? >> just slightly below asking. it is a big change because it used to be a barria home seller could put their house on the market and expect a dozen people lined up to make an offer. now things are different. you're lucky to get even one offer, and it may be below asking price. kristen: i think the latest figure you had was from december. it was 99.2% of asking. still significance, given that a few minutes before that it was

going for 115% of asking. >> that's right. it used to be homes would sell for thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their asking price. kristen: let's talk about why. why is this happening? >> it is a combination of factors. the bay area used to be able to attract very wealthy homebuyers because of its tech scene. but now they can find employment anywhere in the country. if it gets too high, they can go to sacramento, las vegas, or austin. another factor is high mortgage rates. high mortgage rates have added thousands of dollars to the monthly payment for bay area homebuyers. that means a lot of byers simply cannot afford to borrow and meet those high prices. they have to come in under asking because that is all they can afford. kristen: give us a sense for how much home prices have dropped in

real dollars in san francisco, in the oakland area, san jose. darryl: in oakland, home prices are down 10%, and san francisco 5%, and in san jose, 4% since last year. we are talking about homes that are millions of dollars, so it is around $100,000 for oakland. kristen: how does that compare to other big cities in the country? daryl: the drop has been most dramatic in the bay area. the entire country is facing these high mortgage rates, but the unique situation the bay area has to deal with his remote work and tech workers, and tech valuations are down so that has a larger impact on the bay area. kristen: within the bay area, let's zoom in. are there certain areas that are faring better than the big cities? for example, are the suburbs holding their values? daryl: it is really about price point. so a modestly priced single-family home is going to maintain its value the best. there's more inventory of those

smaller condo homes and people tend to prefer the single-family homes. that is why single-family homes that are moderately priced are doing better. for the bay area, moderately priced means closer to $1 million than $2 million. kristen: when people from other markets hear is talking about moderately range million to $2 million. have the $10 million homes slowed down in price? daryl: those have dropped more than any other kind of home. the $10 million homes in the bay area. mortgage rates have gone up and they eyed up to those extensive homes. buying a luxury home seems frivolous when we are facing so much economic uncertainty. kristen: does this mean days on the market have grown for homes that hit the market? daryl: yes. things have slowed down, homes are taking longer to sell. there are not many new listings coming on the market, so if you are looking for a home you will

see more homes for sale, but it will be the same listings we have seen for a while. we are not seeing a lot of new listings in the market. kristen: you were talking but the impact of higher interest rates and mortgage and all that, but i thought the bay area does have a lot of cash offers as well, or at least during the heyday it was happening. to compete, you had to have cash. is that still the case? daryl: that was more about competition that homhomebuy ers were having to put down a lot of money. it is hard to come up with $2 million in cash, especially with tech valuations being down. people may not have the funds on hand. kristen: what percentage of the sales these days are all cash offers? daryl: i don't have that number right in front of me, but it is going to be lower. i would think that fewer cash offers are going through. we usually see cash offers from the more moderately priced homes. you could look at a home for

$300,000. it is easier to come up with that much cash than $2 million. kristen: if you can come up with the cash, now is probably a great time. we would love some tips, given what you know for sellers and byers. -- sellers and buyers. daryl: you can come in under asking price and still get your offer accepted. be ready to negotiate. we are seeing some sellers offer to buy down mortgage rates. you can put down money to get a lower mortgage rate and sellers are helping with that. figure out what it is you want and ask for it because it is a good time to do that. kristen: what about the other side? daryl: the sellers need to know the market. don't go in with high expectations. if you priced too high, you may end up getting no offers and having to do a price drop, and you will never get the same amount of attention in a home as you do the first day that you list. make sure you list for the correct price the first time. kristen: a lot of people

consider whether they should put some money into the home before selling, whether it is renovating something, to make the kitchen more attractive or the bathroom. given this market right now, is that a good investment or not? daryl: it depends. if there is a real issue with the home that is going to scare off byers, it is worth putting in the work because you may not be able to sell a home that has major issues, or you may only be able to sell at a discounted price. but be wary of those upgrades that increase the price of the home, because right now luxury homes are not selling as easily as affordable homes. i would avoid doing the full kitchen, bath remodel and upgrading the home because the more you increase the price, the harder it is going to be for byers to afford that increase in price. kristen: how long before the downward trend starts to turn back up again. anyway to predict that? daryl: when mortgage

fall, prices will go back -- byars will come back. -- buyers will come think prices need to recalibrate in the bay area because the economy is different. it is not as tech reliant as it used to be. we need to reimagine what the bay area is, and i think in the future, there will be people looking to live there for all the amenities, not necessarily just the job market. kristen: will the bay area still be the great real estate investment it has been the last 50 years? that was conventional wisdom that you could not go wrong putting your money in real estate here. daryl: i don't expect a see the double digit increases we saw in the 2010s. the bay area led the nation in terms of price growth. but i think now with remote work, we are going to see the bay area fall more in line with the rest of the country and to more moderate price growth,

around 5%, which is healthier. i think eventually prices will come back up and grow at a stable rate. kristen: i seem to remember people saying the real estate buying season starts after the super bowl. so it is going to pick up. is that still the case? daryl: yes. people tend to buy in the spring because they tend to move in the summer. the real estate market is just getting started. kristen: daryl fairweather, appreciate your insight. coming up next, madonna has been a conversation starter for 50 years and her recent grammy awards look has people talking once again, after much criticism of her on social media. women's advocates are fighting back against ageism and sexism. we wil

kristen: madonna is always controversial and always talked about area but her recent appearance at that grammys had people talking in a different way. here is how the singer looked at night. on social media, people used #madonnasface to point out her dramatically different look, usually with unkind comments. and there were plenty of hurtful headlines. fans are so confused by madonna's new phase of the grammys. joining us as a best-selling author who started a stir on instagram with the response to the haight, rachel simmons. thanks for joining us. for people following this -- not following this closely, what were people saying about madonna at the grammys? rachel: there was such a strong reaction. people saying i don't recognize this person, this is not madonna, can it possibly be her? there was almost no focus on

what she was there to say, only her appearance, and what i think this was about was a lot of ageism. we really punish women when they get older and we don't let them do what they need to do. we just focus on their appearance. kristen: there was also comments about plastic surgery, this and that, and it was all hurtful stuff. you wrote an instagram post calling out the ageism behind it. tell us what your point was. rachel: my point was really unfair for us to call out madonna as an individual. every time we do that, we are not really focusing on the system that creates madonnas. we are not thinking, what is it about our society that puts so ch pressure on women to alter their appearance? it is easy fo an individual rather than take aim at the system, and that is my point. i think it is important for parents to talk to their kids

about it because we are not going to make the society a better place for women or aging people until we look at society and stop beating up on people. kristen: you made the point how people were calling out the wrong thing, and i think that is very true. i think you cited something about women over 50 facing age discrimination and how prevalent it is. rachel: there was an aarp study coming out last year, 6000 women over 50. a huge portion of them said i have been discriminated against, this has taken a toll on my mental health. this is a serious issue. we know that discrimination against women on the basis of age starts at 45, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. it is not the same for men. it s starts much later for men. men tend to be seen as distinguished looking as they get older, but women suddenly are scrutinized for our skin and shape at a much earlier age. kristen: you hear a lot of people praising men for their

salt-and-pepper hair but you rarely hear that for women. you mentioned the mental health aspect, but where is this discrimination happening? are we talking about in jobs or in dating apps? where is this manifesting? rachel: definitely in dating apps. you should listen to women talk about what age they should put down, knowing they become invisible if they list a certain age. but i think in the workplace, we do see significant discrimination. women can be paid less, be less likely to be hired, and we really don't talk about ageism as an issue. we don't talk but the ways in which we inequitably treat people just because they are aging. they are in a process that no one can control. there is a lot of unfairness and a lot of talking we still have to do. kristen: you are an executive coach. do you coach women executives on how to counteract that? rachel: it is really difficult to counteract that. i think you probably can relate.

we have to spend a lot of money on makeup, on hair color, as you just referenced. nobody is praising our salt-and-pepper hair. i talked to my own daughter about how much time we invest. so what can we do? we certainly can speak up about ageism in our workplace. we can make sure we understand the roles and our managers understand the rules. we have to advocate for ourselves when we are worried about discrimination. one way we do that is we look at how are people the same age being treated in relation to us. there is not a lot of consciousness about that. in a way, i think donna -- i think madonna started the conversation. kristen: do men face ageism as well? rachel: of course. everyone faces ageism. the point is it starts later for men. actually, this is something men and women can be allies about and support each other on. i don't think men are subject to spending the same amount of money that women are spending.

the amount of people receiving botox went up by some huge hundreds of percentages in the last 20 years, and it tends to be women who are disproportionately engaging services like surgery, filler, botox,, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on makeup every year. as a catch 22. on the one hand, you get criticized if you don't try to look youthful, but you also get criticized like, does she get botox? does she get plastic surgery? did she do something to herself? rachel: you are damned itf you do, damned if you don't. that's how we know it is unfair. women are penalized for being too young, not being seasoned enough, not having seniority or whatever that quality, that intangible quality women are expected to have in order to be seen as worthy of leadership. there is this very small window where it is like, now you are

both young enough, but not too old, in order to be seen as palatable. whoops, now you are too old. these are double standards everyone needs to be focused on rather than going after individual women who might trigger people or make others uncomfortable because of the choices they have made. kristen: you mentioned that very narrow band of sweet spot for women. i think it is from 30 to 45, right? where you are not too young looking, you can be treated with responsibility. but after you pass 45, it is like you said. let's widen that. what can we do? i know you touched upon this in terms of what managers can do and parents. what about for the viewer, fan, casual social media user, and for us as women? rachel: i think we just have to stop judging individual people for their choices. every time you feel that urge to be like, look what that person did to their face, i would say

take a minute and ask yourself, what is it about our society that might push somebody to do that to their face? maybe i should turn my outrage there. let's ease up on the judgment and think a little bigger about what is at play. i very much think parents need to talk to boys and girls about this. boys should know how much money girls from a young age are starting to spend on makeup. they should understand the role that boys and men play in judging girls and women who don't wear makeup. we can focus on our own behaviors as individuals, as parents, as kids, as teachers, and at the same time think about the system. what beyond us is at play here? and elevate the conversation. kristen: rachel simmons, you have elevated the conversation for us. thank you so much. rachel: thank you for having me. kristen: a new screening done on all san francisco fire fighters has them asking whether they face higher cancer risks and what can be done about

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kristen: firefighting is dangerous work. that was proven again today in today's explosion in san francisco on 20 2nd avenue between nouri aga and moraga. the blast knocked a home off its foundation. three homes were damaged in the fire. one person from one of the homes has burns and is in serious condition. but a firefhtthankfully, minor . this comes as our media partner the san francisco standard has a new article out revealing a different, more long-term risk faced by firefighters, cancer. a recent screening has given devastating news to some in the ranks. joining us with more on the story, noah boston. thank you for joining us. noah: thanks for having me. kristen: your article talked about a recent cancer screening.

tell us about it. was it done on all fire fighters, active, retired? noah: that's right. the department recently screened about 1400 people. this included people over 35 years old, current firefighters, retired firefighters, and some spouses of firefighters as well. kristen: what prompted that, or is that a regular thing? noah: this was the first of its kind event for the department, as i understand. it was prompted because the fire department in san francisco and across the country have really struggled with cancer among their members. fire fighters are at higher risk than the general public of contracting cancer. kristen: out of the 1400, what were the findings? noah: nine people showed signs of potentially having cancer this is not a firm diagnosis. they will need to follow-up for additional testing.

but we do know that all nine of those people are over 50 years old. we don't have a lot of additional detail. we know at least three of them were retired firefighters who used to work in the suppression side of the department. kristen: there is a question of are there certain roles that put them in greater danger in terms of exposure. is nine out of 1400 more than what scientists might expect in a random population of that size? i am not sure if you looked into that. noah: i can say in terms of this specific event, the representatives of the fire department i spoke with, while of course they were devastated to find out that nine people potentially have cancer, they actually said they were concerned the number could be it been higher -- could be even higher. and in other cities, there are rates above 1%. this was below 1%. in a way, it was good news the number wasn't larger.

kristen: what are the additional cancer risks? you talked about this a little bit, but what are the additional risks faced by firefighters? as we look at the video of fires, is it fire suppression? visit chemicals then the buildings that are released by fires? noah: there is a whole collection of factors that contribute to this. one is the material that the firefighters are coming into contact with, especially nowadays. a lot of it is petroleum-based. the soot their bodies can increase risk of cancer. surprisingly, the turnout gear, which is the jacket and the pants that protect the firefighters from the fire, that in and of itself has cancer -- or chemicals that can increase the risk of cancer. even spending time just in that gear can create a higher risk

for firefighters. kristen: this leads me to wonder if they are inventing new types of turnout gear that might be a little safer. noah: they are. i spoke at the screening event last december with the chief of the department. she told me that they have been purchasing gear that has lower rates of these chemicals, that have been more recently identified. they are working towards eventually being able to get gear that has none of these chemicals in it. these chemicals are the same things that protect you from the fire itself. it is a big challenge to find a place in the middle. kristen: in the less than 30 seconds we have left, what kind of screening test was it? i understand it was something pretty novel. noah: it is called the gallery multi-cancer screening test. what the manufacturer says it does is it is a blood test and

it screens for about 50 types of cancer. what it can show is, are there signs in your body that might indicate that you could have cancer? it is a way to do a broad test very quickly to see who should follow up. kristen: more tests need to be done for the nine people, confirming tests. hoping for the best for them. noah baustin, thank you so much. you can read his article and check out more of the san francisco standard's original reporting on their website, sfstandard.com. we will bring you more segments.

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kristen: thanks for joining us for "getting answers." we will be here 3:00 talking t tonight, a special edition of "world news tonight", what's unfolding right here behind us here in turkey. what we have witnessed on the ground here. the staggering devastation. more than 21,000 dead and rising tonight. and this evening here, the moment, what we saw with rescuers on the pile right behind us. here in turkey tonight, search and rescue teams working around the clock, many digging through rubble with their bare hands, looking for survivors now four days after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake. tonight here, amid overwhelming tragedy, the miracles. the boy found alive under the rubble, telling rescuers, my body aches, can you give me water? as they try to get him out. authorities telling us the window for finding survivors, they fear, is closing quickly. here in turkey and in