How’s the market in Saratoga?  Your view of the market will be influenced by whether you’re looking at the homes that have sold, the ones on the market, or the ones that are sitting and not selling. 

Here’s a look at the numbers from my Real Estate Report for single family homes: 

Among the sold homes, the median price has been slipping.  This is an “overall” number though, not reflecting price points, location, or school districts.

Here’s the same info for condos and townhomes in Saratoga:

As you can see there were no sales of condos in Saratoga in November - hence all the zeros.   What is managing to sell are the very least expensive homes - not the luxury condos.

Now let’s turn our attention to what’s happening now amoung the active or for sale homes in Saratoga (using Altos Research, to which I have a subscription).

Here’s a graph displaying the overview of list prices for condos and single family homes in Saratoga:

Oddly, list prices appear to be up even though the median sales price is clearly down.  Are sellers out of touch, or what’s happening?  We’ll need more data to answer that.

Here’s a similar graph but just of the single family homes, and this time with a breakdown by price quartile. (Please note that the info would be even more precise if broken down by school district, but this particular program doesn’t yet filter by schools.)

Interestingly, the middle quartiles showed upward movement in pricing over the last 12 months. I have buyers in the lower 3 quartile and it seems that there’s not much inventory among thouse in Saratoga or Cupertino Schools, and when the home is nicely fixed up and has no issues (problems), prices seem to be inching up. 
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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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Homes in Saratoga, especially in the Saratoga or Cupertino schools areas and in the lowest price ranges, are selling at an improved clip from a year ago. 

Below please find charts indicating the overall residential real estate trends for houses on the market and sold over the last year in Saratoga, California.   Of course the “market heat” will vary from home to home and area to area due to neighborhoood quality, price point, newness of construction and condition of home, school district (especially), and acreage, among other things.  So these general comments may not apply to your unique house, but will be a good indicator of the housing market in Saratoga generally.

First, supply and demand in Saratoga over the last year.  The number of Saratoga homes on the market is up 31% year over year and the number of sold properties is up 72%.  The trend line indicates a rise in both homes on the market and those sold.  June’s inventory was a bit smaller than May’s. Will inventory continue to contract? If so, it will put pressure on home buyers because prices may begin to rise as the inventory gets better absorbed.

Please note that while the market is improving very noticeably, there are still far more homes on the market than are actually selling. Sellers, take heart that it’s improving but do not believe that the selling conditions are so changed that your home doesn’t need to be priced aggressively and staged nicely to get sold. (Even in a hot sellers market, some homes never do sell because of price and condition, primarily.)

Months Supply of Inventory (absorption rate) in Saratoga for single family homes (houses) has been declining and is down 26.2% from a year ago at this same time.

Finally, a look  at homes between one and two million dollars in Saratoga (for sale, pending and sold).  I wanted an overview of what the market is like in this fairly hot segment of the market. 

This chart is helpful as it indicates price reductions and “days on market” as well as the current or sold prices. The clusters reveal that most homes that sell are selling pretty fast.  Very few homes languish on the market more than 6 months before they are sold, removed from the market, or repriced dramatically enough to get a new MLS number and position in the market.

Homeowners: it is a better time to sell now than it’s been in recent history, and the market is moving into your favor (esp in the lowest price ranges). To maximize your home’s value when selling, it needs to be postioned to sell fast while buyers have the most interest in it.   Buyers, the “shiney pennies” are being bought fairly quickly so if you see a good home in a good area with a good price, don’t wait too long to act.  If you can buy a solid home with “good bones” that needs a little work, you’ll have far less competition then if you buy the turnkey home that everyone wants.

If you are interested in selling or buying a home in Saratoga, or anywhere in the west valley communities of Silicon Valley, please contact me for more market information that is relevant to your homebuying or homeselling needs. I would be happy to meet with you personally and discuss your needs and the current climate for buying and selling.