This week one of my buyers asked me about the inventory levels in Santa Clara County (San Jose, specificially) and wondered if they’re lower than usual.  I get this question a lot lately so wanted to present the numbers to the readers of this Valley of Hearts Delight Blog. 

How low is the inventory? It’s way off from last year in most parts of the west valley. But remember, last year was unusual.  (Below are the numbers for single family homes, or houses.)

How much is this year’s inventory off from the average of the last 6 years?

Almaden: down appx 10%
Cambrian: down appx 18%
Campbell: down appx 20%
Los Gatos: up appx 6%
Saratoga: up appx 38%

Once again, “easy answers” allude us. 

If we were to push this further, we’d find that certain price points (or bands or strata) in the market are way above or below the typical numbers.  It is very hard to generalize accurately.  Anecdotally, though, it seems as though there’s very little on the market as far as my buyers are concerned (and right now, my buyers are looking at properties in Santa Clara County ranging from the 400s to between 1 and 2 million). 

For information on your particular situation, please contact me.

The Campbell real estate market appears to be “past the bottom”, as is the case with much of the Silicon Valley housing market. In some parts of San Jose, “the bottom” was in February or March of this year.  Campbell may have hit that point sooner - but in any event it is now heading back toward a balanced market (30 is the balance point for this formula). (Images and charts from Altos Research, to which I have a subscription and permission to use these, as well as the RE Report, another subscription service of mine. Altos uses list prices, the RE Report uses sold data as well as list prices.)

Let’s look at the data for October in Campbell - actives, pendings, and closeds (care of the RE Report).

While in many parts of the greater San Jose area the Days on Market (DOM) are lengthening, they are shortening in Campbell! Sales are up, but prices are still declining a bit (in several areas of Santa Clara County, prices are again inching up - this tends to happen in less expensive areas).  Pending sales are up and inventory is down.  So there are some mixed indicators but Campbell appears to be at or near “the bottom”.
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Today we’ll have a look at the Campbell real estate market. Sitting on the western side of Silicon Valley between downtown San Jose and Los Gatos, Campbell has small town charm with big city ammenities.  The schools are good, the crime is fairly low, and there’s a nice sense of community identity & participation. The downtown area is vital, but so are the shopping hubs outside of the historic zone.  The local parks are a big draw too.

Homes range from modest condos to historic properties and large, estate-like homes on big lots. Just about every type of residential architecture can be found here, with of course a preponderance of ranch style homes but also Eichler homes, Victorian houses, Craftsman style homes, Spanish or Mediterranean design, and Contemporary homes.

“How’s the market?” will elicit different answers by neighborhood, home type, school district, and price point.  We’ll separate out the “markets” by pricing quartile in this post.

First, an overview of listing activity among single family homes in Campbell (data from Altos Research, used by permission/subscription):

And now the same but for condominiums and townhomes:

Generally speaking, inventory is somewhere between flat and barely declining. List prices appear to be falling slightly among single family homes and rising slightly among condos (which are more likely to qualify for FHA loans and benefit from some of the first time homebuyer credits).  Nothing dramatic here, but the condo market may have already hit bottom while the market among single family homes is coasting there … almost there….

Visually, the median list price ”looks” like this when viewed over the course of the last year and both the conglomerates of single family homes and condos are shown (rather than broken down by price quartile):

These kinds of graphs and charts can be a little deceiving, though. The perception has a lot to do with which data you’re looking at. Below is JUST the combined “curve” for the median price of single family homes over the last 1 year.
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The Campbell real estate market is levelling out and even improving in many regards but it does remain a buyers market there now. In this look at the real estate market in the city of Campbell, we’ll use tools and data provided by two subscription services I have, Altos Research and The Real Estate Report, and also I have crunched some numbers from our MLS myself. We will review both the situation for buyers and sellers of houses as well as condos and townhomes.

How is the Campbell housing market? Data from Altos Research.

Altos Research analyses the Campbell real estate market as a whole using list prices (not sold prices - I will use sold prices further on in this post). To get an overview of how the market’s doing, Altos created the “median market action index”. This is an overview of how Altos perceives that the real estate market is doing, factoring in prices, days on market, etc. Below is the median market action index for Campbell (the 95008 zip code).

Altos states that “A value above 30 indicates demand is relatively robust, we call that a Seller’s Market. Below 30 is a Buyer’s Market.” So we can understand that the condo market seems to be improving now and fthe single family home market has been bouncing up and down within a small range since July or so. (Tthe chart below should report whatever is most current, thanks to my having used a little html magic.)

Inventory in Campbell had been rising, but recently is leveling off:

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The city of Campbell was founded by Benjamin Campbell. His first land purchase there occurred in 1851, and he planted it with grain and hay. This was a busy place during the orchard and fruit canning eras of the valley; it boasted three canneries in what is now the city of Campbell. Situated perfectly along the railroad line to Los Gatos, Campbell became a shipping center for the prized produce of The Valley of Hearts Delight.

Interestingly, while the citys origins go back to the orchard era, Campbell was not incorporated as a city until 1952. As with many other incorporations in Santa Clara County at that time, it was largely as a defensive maneuver against being swallowed up by the fast growing city of San Jose.

Today Campbell has a small town feel while offering a quaint downtown area, good schools, and reasonably priced (for our valley, anyway) homes. Crime is low and theres great community spirit. Downtown Campbell is a destination for many with some excellent restaurants, shops, art galleries and museums. Campbell is also home to several excellent parks and movie theaters and recently became tied in to the light rail system too.

For more information about Campbell, visit the citys official website at http://www.ci.campbell.ca.us.