Median List price for San Jose 95129

How’s the Cupertino real estate market right now? Let’s start with the most basic window into conditions: supply and demand. (This graph and more info comes from my Cupertino Real Estate Report. Please click on the link for much more data and information – with statistics and trends dating back many years. Also you will find reports which are monthly, quarterly and annually generated. Finally, there’s a “property analysis” tab which enables you to check sales – and see images – around any Cupertino address. Please allow the analysis tab to do its slow load – it’s worth it – enjoy!)

Cupertino Real Estate Supply and Demand

Cupertino Real Estate Market Barometer of Supply and Demand

The realty market barometer is going through the roof!  This implies that it’s very easy for Cupertino home sellers to get their properties into contract and to the closing table, that it is a hot seller’s market in Cupertino.  Please note the darkest line reflects housing inventory – and it’s been plummeting for months.  (Look at each year for October through December and you will note that the pattern is seasonal – but the actual number of homes available does vary considerably.)  Now please note the pale gray line, which indicates the number of homes selling and closing escrow.  The bigger the gap between these lines, the more choices buyers have, and the narrower the gap, the fewer.  Right now, for the first time covered by the chart above, these lines have met, meaning that homes are selling at the same rate that they are coming on the market.  When supply matches or outpaces demand, prices nearly always rise.

But what about home prices in Cupertino?

Here’s a look at the numbers, in brief, as reported with closed sales in December 2011.  Surprisingly, although the market appears to be very hot, prices don’t seem to reflect that – perhaps “yet”.  The median sales price of houses in Cupertino are off significantly from both the month prior and the year prior, and the average sales price is down a little. The number of sales is off a little and the list price to sales price is off some too (both year over year and month over month). Meanwhile, the days on market are growing pretty steadily.

What’s happening? Why this contradiction between the market barometer and pricing?   First, the days on market reflect the inventory which recently sold, not the inventory which is available today.  This tells us that many homes that have been on the market awhile are now being purchased. (Probably others went off the market for the holidays, which is typical for the season.) (more…)

The annual market report is out at popehandy.REReport.com and we can now learn how 2011 compared to 2010.  The median sales price for houses in Santa Clara County was off 5.3% overall.  But from one part of the valley to the next it varied wildly with 6 cities or areas finding themselves in positive territory while others were off by double digits.

In the image to the left, I’ve put into bold the cities where the median sales price of houses which sold and closed escrow in 2011 were ahead of 2010′s pricing.

What is it that makes Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Mountain View and Palo Alto “in the black”?

Most of these cities/towns are upscale, west valley communities.  But so are Saratoga, Cupertino, and Monte Sereno.

Gilroy was especially hard-hit with the housing downturn so perhaps in that case, it’s just coming back into more of a balance. (Then again, so was Morgan Hill and it’s still off by 12%.)

The LinkedIn IPO and others in the Palo Alto area drove prices up for some parts of the housing market nearby and it’s likely that this explains the positive growth for Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills.  That said, it would seem that Los Altos, and perhaps even Sunnyvale would have seen stronger numbers on the same account.  Perhaps school scores are the key driver here.

Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno often behave somewhat similarly as they are adjacent to one another and often attract similar home buyers who want good schools, a nice downtown area nearby and scenic beauty with the hills.  The annual numbers show Monte Sereno down 6.7%, Saratoga down 2% but Los Gatos up 6.4%.  With Monte Sereno, there are very few sales each month and each year (only about 4,000 residents), so there can be a wider swing without it necessarily being accurate. Saratoga and Los Gatos each have about 30,000 people who call these areas home, though, so the data is much more helpful.  Saratoga and Los Gatos both have multiple school districts, views, homes with better proximity to “downtown” and more variables – I think we’d have to dig a lot deeper to learn why these two neighboring markets are so diverse.  We might also have to look at multiple years of data to see if Saratoga spiked while LG slumped to explain the difference. (more…)

How’s the Saratoga California real estate market?

Annual Saratoga CA Real Estate Update:

Saratoga’s prices slipped a bit in 2011 over 2010.  Here are the basic numbers with the stats for the annual review, including median sales price and average sales price of houses sold (see the Saratoga Real Estate Report for even more data):

Median Sale Price 2011 = $1,480,000   2010 = $1,510,000 (-2.0%)

Average Sale Price 2011 = $1,636,300   2010 = $1,657,140 (-1.3%)

For condominiums and townhouses it was stronger (finally, they’ve taken a beating!):

Median Sale Price 2011 =  $660,000     2010 =  $612,500 (+7.8%)

Average Sale Price  2011 = $684,500    2010 =  $640,895 (+6.8%)

To see much more information please visit the full annual Real Estate Report for Saratoga condos and townhomes

Monthly Real Estate Update for Saratoga:

Sales of single family homes were up but prices were down month over month – but way, way up over December 2010! It’s taking much longer to sell houses compared to a year ago too – but look at the prices from a year ago – the low price went with a very brisk sale time (average 17 days on the market).  That was nuts both for low pricing and for speed!

What about Saratoga condos for sale and sold? There are very, very few of these which sell in any given month, so the numbers can very easily jump around like crazy – and therefore aren’t terribly helpful.  (more…)

How’s the real estate market in the Willow Glen area of San Jose?  Like the greater Silicon Valley region, Willow Glen is comprised of many smaller micro-markets.  It will be different in north Willow Glen, Palm Haven or in a walk-to-town area than it will be in the Dry Creek area or St. Francis Woods neighborhood – let alone differences for school districts, price point, sale type (regular versus short sale or bank owned), zip code and home type!  It’s a patchwork of all these smaller markets, in other words.  What’s happening in one segment might be very different than in another.

Today’s post will be the broad view of Willow Glen and comments may not apply to your specific property – for info on your neighborhood, call or email me!

Disclaimers aside, overall it is a seller’s market in Willow Glen right now, but prices are slipping a little and not everything is selling (and certainly not getting the prices that many sellers want).  Some of this is seasonal – prices often fall a little in summer, so it may not be anything to be alarmed about.

Below are the basic numbers, stats and trends from the closed sales of houses in June and July:

and July

And next, of Willow Glen condos, where it’s been a cold buyer’s marke but recently heated up:

And June numbers for Willow Glen condos -

What about home prices in Willow Glen?

Below please find the Altos Charts (to which I have a subscription). NB Altos uses LIST prices, not solds (also they go by zips or cities, so don’t cover Willow Glen per se with it’s partial entry into the 95124 zip).

1 – Houses in the 95125 zip code – history, all prices combined.

2 – Houses in the San Jose, 95125 zip code, by price quartile over last 180 days

3 – Condominiums and townhouses in Willow Glen, San Jose 95125 – all quartiles combined over the last few years for median list price: (more…)

Multiple offers have returned to many segments of the Silicon Valley real estate market.  We are hearing about them in Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View – areas where newly minted IPO money is having an impact – but also in more modest, middle class areas such as San Jose’s Cambrian neighborhood. The trend appears to be spreading.

What Silicon Valley home sellers need to know and do to attract multiple offers

If you’re a Silicon Valley home seller, what do you need to know to try to get multiples on your home?  What should you beware of?  In short, here’s what needs to happen if you want to attract multiple offers on your home for sale:

1. The home must be turnkey, either fully remodeled or close to it – it must look like there’s nothing or very little for a buyer to do.  In addition to being turnkey, it must be squeaky clean and well staged! It needs to be comfortable – not too hot, not too cold. You want buyers and their agent to linger longer.
   
2. The price must be at or even under market value.  That is, you must be willing to price it aggressively.  Think it’s worth $1,050,000?  You might list it at $999,999 to get in under a major price threshold and to be the very best, most attractive property for the money. Yes, it might be under priced.  Over priced listings get either one offer at best or, more likely, none at all.
3. The property must be highly accessible. If it is hard to see, you probably won’t get multiple offers (and may get none at all).  (Please see articles on accessibility and on open houses.)
4. Finally, the property must be well marketed.  This includes a wide range of factors ranging from photographs, text, fliers, signs, and even the commission rate offered to the buyer’s side.

What Silicon Valley home buyers need to know and do to compete with multiple offers

If you’re a Silicon Valley home buyer, how do you win out in multiples without giving away all of your rights or overpaying for your house/home? (more…)

The Los Gatos real estate market for houses & duet homes looks pretty good at first glance, but if you scratch the surface and analyze some of the sub-markets, we see that it varies widely as to how “the” market is faring. (It’s not one market, but many smaller markets near each other.)

Yesterday I spent some time pulling apart the housing market in Los Gatos (for houses and duet homes, not condos) by school district and price point to get the months of inventory.  Here’s a brief summary:

The market gets substantially colder as you go up in price – read more and get more details on Live in Los Gatos!

More reading…

How’s the Los Gatos Real Estate Market Doing Now?
Please also view the current statistics care of Altos Research on my popehandy.com site on the Los Gatos real estate market (uses list prices rather than solds):
How’s the Real Estate Market in Los Gatos?