Every couple of weeks I update this post to bring fresh news and data on the Cambrian Park real estate market. On Dec 9th  I went onto the MLS and ran the “months of inventory” or absorption rate of houses and duet homes (what our MLS calls “class 1″)  in “area 14″ or Cambrian area of San Jose. This time I broke it down into price points as well as the type of sale (regular, short sale, bank owned)  so you can pinpoint the pricing for the various segments of the Cambrian market. (Reminder: months of inventory reflects how long it will take to sell a property if sales continue at the current rate. Six months or so is considered “balanced”. More is a buyer’s market and less is a seller’s.)

**please note – typo below – numbers were crunched December 9th, 2011, not December 10th.

Cambrian Park (San Jose) Months of Inventory by sale type & price point Dec 9, 2011

What’s selling? “Regular sales” – non distressed. Not faring so well? Short sales.  In many price points, although many are under contract or pending, FEW – sometimes none – are making it to the closing table.  We are hearing a lot about the streamlined processes for short sales, but these numbers hint at a different reality, namely that Silicon Valley and Cambrian short sales sell but often don’t close escrow.

What is the typical kind of home and price for these neighborhoods?  Of the homes which transferred ownership in the last 30 days, a typical house cost about $600,000, has about 1600 square feet and sits on a lot of around 6700 square feet (and is “partially updated”, not fully remodeled).  The price per square foot averaged $376 but ran from $205 (distressed and on a hugely busy road) to $513 (close to the hills near Almaden and Los Gatos).  If the home you want to buy or sell needs remodeling or is “all original” it’s probably going to sell for less. If it’s in a great area, is a regular sale and absolutely turnkey and fully remodeled, it’ll sell for more.  A beautifully remodeled Cambrian house with 3 bed, 2 bath and 1200 square feet can easily run $600,000 or more if it’s a regular sale and in a good area with no “issues” (high voltage lines, backing to busy road or school etc.).

What about the pending sales? (more…)

Right now in Santa Clara County (which is the bulk of the “Silicon Valley” area), there are 3392 houses available (not under contract) and there have been 853 which have closed in the last month.  That’s 3.98 months of inventory, or a seller’s market.  (There are 2668 which are under contract, but many are short sales which may never close escrow.)  Four months of inventory for the county is pretty strong overall.

For condominiums and townhouses in Santa Clara County, there are currently 1406 on the market and 289 which have sold/closed in the last month, giving us 4.87 months of inventory, which is technically a seller’s market but is very close to a balanced market. (There are 1096 pendings.)  The average “days on market” for the solds vary from about 50 days to about 115 days, depending on whether or not it’s a distressed sale.

Whether a home is in a buyer’s or seller’s market depends largely on its location, price point and sales type.  It is easiest to sell a home which is a “regular sale” situation, harder to sell a bank owned home and hardest to sell a short sale listing.  It’s easier to sell entry level priced houses, harder to sell luxury townhouses or condominiums.

For information on your part of the Silicon Valley real estate market, please email or phone me today!

Today we’ll look at the ratio & relationship between real estate listings and sales of houses and duet homes in Silicon Valley over the last eighteen months. The goal is to get a sense of the market trends in terms of the overall absorption of homes for sale.  (We’ll give a glance at condo and townhome sales but the focus is on single family homes.) How hard is it to sell a home?  The answer has to do with supply and demand – the number of listings and the number of sales.

In the graphs below, the reddish brown line represents the number of pending sales.  The blue line indicates the number of listings or homes for sale. Put simply, the closer these two lines are together, the hotter the market – that is, the more of a seller’s market it is.  When they are far apart, it’s more cold, more of a buyer’s market.  If the lines cross, it is a wild frenzy (that does happen in one case, as you will see). Below please find the graph for the homes in Santa Clara County overall (all areas).

Santa Clara County listings to sales Jan 2009 to June 2010

 You can see that these two lines pinch together in about December 2009 to January 2010.  Prices had dropped and investors were swooping in! The  market has cooled since then.

Santa Clara County condo & townhome listings to pending sales Jan 2009 to June 2010

 For condos and townhouses, all of Santa Clara County:Here the two lines  – or the market – were close together for about 3-4 months.  Buyers understood that condominiums in Silicon Valley were bargain priced, and they responded by buying.Now let’s look at various areas around the county.  We’ll take these in Alphabetical order, beginning with Almaden Valley.

Almaden Valley listings to pending sales Jan 2009 to June 2010

 As you can see, the market improved but never got as “hot” as in the county generally.  This is because it’s a more expensive area, and most of what was selling in winter consisted of entry level housing.
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April 30, 2010 was the deadline for the federal  home buyer’s credit – if someone wanted to take advantage of it, he or she had to be “in contract” on residential real estate by the end of April.

Did it create a buying frenzy in Silicon Valley?

Not really. The numbers across Santa Clara County were very similar in April as they were in March. In March it was 946 closed houses & duet homes and 325 condos and townhomes. In April we saw 932 and 291. Cumulatively, it was down a little from March. And generally that’s what it seemed like, too, in the trenches: just slightly cooler.

Here’s a look at the numbers* with some historical perspective going back to 1998.  I ran these numbers myself on MLSListings.com and have made every effort for accuracy (but cannot guarantee it).  Our MLS will come out with official stats in a few more days – until then, consider this a “sneak peek” care of Mary Pope-Handy:

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