by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | May 9, 2023 | Condos & Townhomes, Houses, Luxury Homes, Market Reports, Saratoga, Single Family Homes
Orchard and Hills in Saratoga, California
The Saratoga CA real estate market has been giving us some mixed signals over the last few months with home prices jiggling up and down. Here’s a quick overview from the RE Report – please view the full data here:
- Saratoga average house prices fell by 3.8% to $4,008,360 as compared to the month before, and is down 5% from the year before
- The median sale price for houses slipped both monthly and annually to $3,780,000 (-8.4% monthly and -7.8% annually)
- The days of inventory in April dropped to 37 (-27.1% as compared to March and +64.4% from April 2022 )
- The sale to list price ratio declined to 98.7% (-3.4% from March 2022 and -14.3% from April 2022 )
- The condo and townhome market are a strong seller’s market – see all the data below.
How’s the Saratoga CA real estate market?
Saratoga has a diverse real estate market due to a wide range of home prices, square footage, lot sizes, school districts, and more. The luxury tier, generally $4 million and up (but in Saratoga, that’s really still just a house in an expensive zip code) normally moves slower than other price points. Saratoga’s entry level housing is usually the strongest. If the numbers swing wildly at any given month, it could be that more or fewer homes in a particular school district and pricing tier.
To really understand the Saratoga CA real estate market, you’ll need to get hyper local data for that home’s pricing tier, school district, and any other impactful data points.
Trends at a Glance for the Saratoga CA Real Estate Market
Data below for the Saratoga CA real estate market is from the ReReport.
| Trends At a Glance |
Apr-23 |
Previous Month |
Year-over-Year |
| Median Price |
$3,780,000 (-8.4%) |
$4,125,000 |
$4,100,000 (-7.8%) |
| Average Price |
$4,008,360 (-3.8%) |
$4,166,240 |
$4,217,770 (-5.0%) |
| No. of Sales |
22 (+37.5%) |
16 |
31 (-29.0%) |
| Pending |
46 (+17.9%) |
39 |
45 (+2.2%) |
| Active |
28 (+3.7%) |
27 |
24 (+16.7%) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
98.7% (-3.4%) |
102.20% |
115.2% (-14.3%) |
| Days on Market |
51 (+175.8%) |
19 |
10 (+432.5%) |
| Days of Inventory |
37 (-27.1%) |
51 |
22 (+64.4%) |
Next, a quick glance at the Altos Research market profile for a quick summary of the Saratoga CA real estate market conditions. Altos uses LIST prices, not sold prices, for this chart and the others, below.
Altos Research – list prices for Saratoga CA 95070 (more…)
by Mary Pope-Handy | Apr 30, 2022 | Eichler & mid-century modern, Home Types, Houses, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, West San Jose, Willow Glen (SJ)
Mid-century modern homes, including those designed by Joseph Eichler, dot the Silicon Valley & South Bay Area real estate landscape. There are probably more than 5,000 Eichlers in Santa Clara County altogether, plus all the other homes of that genre with the similar modern style, which was influenced by the ranch and prarie styles as well as the dramatic work by Frank Lloyd Wright (open beam ceilings, nearly flat roofs, lots of exposed wood & glass windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling). Eichlers, especially, put a premium on privacy from the street but open to the outdoors otherwise.
Not every community in Santa Clara County has Eichler homes, but most have the mid-century modern style homes & neighborhoods. These homes vary from tiny, modest cottages of 1100 square feet to large & elegant houses of nearly 3,000 square feet, featuring big, central atriums or courtyards. (There are also some co-ops in the valley too.) The quality varies, as the homes were constructed by several different builders with different home buying budgets in mind. Real estate prices range from “entry level” to very expensive, depending on the location (city and schools), size of the home & lot, and condition of the property. Most of them are now about 50 years old, though some are a little younger.
Some of the West Side Silicon Valley Communities which feature Eichler and Mid-Century Modern Homes
In Los Gatos there are no Eichlers but there are a small handful of single family homes which are mid-century modern on Eastridge Drive (just off Blossom Hill Road and Hillbrook). There are a couple more at the end of Magnuson Terrace (off Magnuson Loop and Los Gatos Blvd). Additionally, there are some smaller mid-50s homes on El Gato (and adjacent portions of Escobar) off of Los Gatos-Almaden Road. Unfortunately, not all of these homes are “well kept”, though many are.
Monte Sereno is home to 16 Eichler houses on Via Sereno beginning at the intersection of Winchester Blvd with Via Sereno. These houses were built in the late 60s to early 70s.
(more…)
by Clair Handy | May 1, 2021 | Eichler & mid-century modern, Home Types, Houses, Mid Century, Ranch, Senior Living, Single Family Homes
Love it or hate it, you can’t escape it: the Ranch.
By far the most abundant architectural style among Silicon Valley homes is the ranch. A recent resurgence in interest in this unique and pervasive house design suggest it is regaining popularity, and there are plenty of reasons to love it! Here we’ll take a peek at the history, how to identify, and the function behind the ranch design. Ready to meet America’s dream home?
by the National Plan Service, Inc (1956) on Archive.org – Click to see
Back on the Ranch: A Brief History
In the early 1930s, San Diego designer Cliff May took the architectural world by storm with his spin on the Spanish colonial revival home. Inspired by adobe ranchos and modern design with an emphasis on comfortable California living, May developed this unique style. This soon evolved into the quintessential California ranch style.
It’s no surprise that the ranch has come to be known as a suburban style. Its popularity was widespread during the booming post-war years through the 1970s, peaking in the 1950s with ranch homes accounting for as many as 9 out of 10 new homes! (Witold Rybczynski, p 207)
Having saturated the market for decades, and with buyers wanting bigger homes, the market shifted away from building the sprawling single-story ranch in the later decades of the 20th century. Still the design retained popularity in the resale market. With more ranch homes celebrating their golden jubilee (some of the earliest are approaching 90) and some gaining historic designations there has been a renewed interest in ranch architecture over the last decade or so.
Design Elements
“Today, almost any house that provides for an informal type of living and is not definitely marked by unmistakable style symbols is called a ranch house.” (Sunset Western Ranch Houses (1946), IX – 1946).
(more…)
by Mary Pope-Handy | May 11, 2020 | Cupertino, Houses, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Luxury Homes, Market Reports, Saratoga
Today we’re looking at the real estate market for houses in some of the “west valley” communities along the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains – areas where schools are good, crime is low, residents enjoy scenic views of the hills (or of the valley from the hills, depending on the location) and overall, a highly educated population not too far from Highway 85. This will be a real estate market comparison for Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, and Los Altos.
Of the four municipalities, three are really very similar to each other in several regards. Cupertino has the largest population – about 61,000 people – but Los Altos, Los Gatos and Saratoga are all similarly sized, somewhere between 31,000 residents. The latter three also enjoy a traditional “downtown” area which is popular with pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists alike. (Monte Sereno has under 4,000 residents, which is so small that the statistics are very easily thrown from month to month, so it is omitted in this quick study.) Of the four, Cupertino, then, is the least similar due to size and lack of a central downtown area for now. This may feel different once the Vallco Mall is redeveloped.
We’ll take a quick look at these areas now in terms of the real estate market trends and statistics for each area, considering just “class 1” (houses and duet homes). The charts used below are from Altos Research, to which I have a subscription, and they will be automatically updated each week.
Please note: the Los Gatos data is probably a little artificially low as it will include all 3 zip codes, meaning also the Los Gatos Mountains, which are quite a bit more affordable than the areas “in town”.
In addition, as of this writing we are in the shelter-in-place phase 1 of the pandemic. This post is updated approximately every quarter or half-year, so we’re just starting to see the results of these changes to the market, but it will take a while to see the full picture. For now you can read more about the Coronavirus impact on real estate sales in my post on the topic.
Also, during the shutdown so far, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) stopped the timer on all Days on Market (DOM). Therefore these numbers will be off beginning from March 17th through around May 17th. In the data below, this will affect any numbers related to the days on market, the absorption rate, and the days of inventory.
Now on with the analysis!
Market Comparisons
(1) Median List Price (per Altos Research):
(more…)
by Mary Pope-Handy | Jan 16, 2020 | Buying Tips, Cambrian Park (SJ), Houses, Most Popular Articles, Single Family Homes, Working in real estate
A plat map comes with your preliminary title report (provided by your title company with maps from the Santa Clara County tax assessor’s office when you purchase or sell a home in California), tucked away at the back and somewhat mysterious with lots of numbers in small print. It holds quite a bit of helpful information if you know what it is you’re seeing. Today we’ll view a sample of one of these – breaking down the plat map shown as a small thumbnail image on the right to more readable parts so that you can learn how to “read” or understand a plat map.
Quick overview of what’s on a plat map
There’s a wealth of information on the plat map. Take a look and see what you can pick out on your own first.
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by Mary Pope-Handy | May 10, 2010 | Condos & Townhomes, Houses, Luxury Homes, Market Reports, Santa Clara, Santa Clara County (all), Saratoga, Sunnyvale
The real estate news is so mixed it’s mind boggling, whether it’s a national perspective, one specific to California, the San Francisco Bay Area, the “south Bay”, Silicon Valley or even San Jose in particular. It is anything but a uniform, monolithic market. Even so, it’s good to look at the big picture along side the hyper local level, and that’s what we’ll do today.
Today’s San Jose Mercury News featured a front page article by Sue McAllister (an excellent reporter) on Santa Clara County housing values. She shares that Zillow says that we’ve hit bottom here in Santa Clara County. That is certainly good news to home owners accross Silicon Valley! And I don’t disagree that countywide, we’re definitely looking up right now. No guarantees for the future, but Zillow says that the threat of a second or double dip no longer seems likely. Whew!
Unfortunately, there’s another real risk to this recovery and it’s not the “shadow industry”. This time it’s homeowners walking away because they’re underwater (not because they can’t afford to stay, but because they choose not to). Sixty Minutes did a segment on this phenomena of home owners walking away last night., which you can watch via this link.
(more…)
by Mary Pope-Handy | Jan 9, 2010 | Condos & Townhomes, Houses, Market Info, Market Reports
Home sales in Santa Clara County have bounced back, ending the year on an up note! Home sales were up 28.7% in 2009, while the median price dropped 20.2%. The good news? Prices bottomed out in the first quarter and have been rising steadily, albeit slowly, ever since.
To read about the market in particular parts of Santa Clara County (both cities and districts within the city of San Jose), you can read my full on-line report here: http://popehandy.rereport.com.
There is also a 4 page printable version with more insightful articles about the annual market, here: http://rereport.com/scc/print/Mary.PopeHandySCC.pdf
Economists are mixed on what will happen in 2010 and beyond, but many think that this year will be better than last, and 2011 will be a “hot” market again as prices are largely undervalued right now.
by Mary Pope-Handy | Dec 2, 2009 | Almaden Valley (SJ), Cambrian Park (SJ), Campbell, Houses, Los Gatos, Market Reports, Saratoga
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.)
| SFH |
Almaden |
Cambrian |
Campbell |
Los Gatos |
Saratoga |
| MLS Areas |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 11/30/2009 |
50 |
86 |
81 |
133 |
86 |
| 11/30/2008 |
93 |
176 |
161 |
184 |
93 |
| 11/30/2007 |
58 |
163 |
130 |
113 |
58 |
| 11/30/2006 |
54 |
92 |
103 |
108 |
54 |
| 11/30/2005 |
56 |
81 |
73 |
104 |
56 |
| 11/30/2004 |
26 |
32 |
58 |
108 |
26 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6 yr average |
56 |
105 |
101 |
125 |
62 |
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.
