How is the Monte Sereno real estate market? Because the city is small, with just about 3,500 residents, there usually are few homes listed for sale or selling, and with small numbers we can get seeming volatility. This article is updated monthly with new data and analysis, so scroll down to read the latest and check back regularly. Here are a few details from the latest market update:
- With so few sales and listings, Monte Sereno real estate data can swing quite wildly in the charts below so take it with a grain of salt.
- This city appears to be in a seller’s market with severely low inventory, just 8 available homes at the end of August. That’s huge growth, but still a drop in the bucket for what’s needed.
- There were just 3 closed sales and 2 pending sales, both up from this time last year.
- August of 2022 had zero closed sales, so there isn’t much to compare the market to on that front.
There are ALMOST no condominiums or townhomes in Monte Sereno. As of August 2023, the MLS showed just 6 sales in these two categories in total – and that’s going back to 1998! And one of those, at least, appears to actually be in Los Gatos. One of the major challenges for this city is to ensure that at least some housing units are deemed “affordable.” You can find the city’s housing plan here (an online pdf): http://www.montesereno.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View/674
Because this is such a small city and there’s a tiny pool of data, please also have a look at the Los Gatos real estate market post on this site.
Below is a quick market profile for the Monte Sereno real estate market. This is updated automatically weekly, so please check back often.
Altos Research does weekly reports on the Monte Sereno real estate data, to which we subscribe. You can see the full weekly report for Monte Sereno HERE, and if you’d like to get weekly updates in your inbox can click the subscribe button (you can also navigate to another zip code or city and subscribe to that as well). Here’s the data on home descriptions per price quartile in the report, updated automatically throughout the month:
Stats for recently closed home sales in Monte Sereno
Here are the quick statistics for the closed sales in the last calendar month to give a sense of how things are going with the Monte Sereno realty market. Given that the supply of homes and sales to study is tiny, what can we tell from this data?
Certain trends are still visible. It’s true that an average Monte Sereno house has moved closer to $3 – $4 million over the last couple of years and often higher. A little steep for most folks! Looking back over time and comparing multiple months of data will often give us enough information to see overarching trends like this.
Monte Sereno Real Estate Market Trends at a Glance:
With such a small market area, occasionally we run into a problem with the sales data: no closed sales in a month means no data. Having few sales can make the chart swing out of balance quickly, but no sales means we may have to look elsewhere for sales analysis. In this case, all months compared had extraordinarily small numbers of closed sales. So while we have some data from this market, I strongly recommend also checking the Los Gatos market which follows similar trends to this small community, but on a larger scale which generally supports more reliable data analysis.
August: 3 Sales
| Trends At a Glance | Aug 2023 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $3,450,000 (-2.3%) | $3,532,500 | $0 (N/A) |
| Average Price | $4,083,330 (+15.6%) | $3,532,500 | $0 (N/A) |
| No. of Sales | 3 (+50.0%) | 2 | 0 (N/A) |
| Pending | 2 (-33.3%) | 3 | 1 (+100.0%) |
| Active | 8 (+100.0%) | 4 | 1 (+700.0%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 110.9% (+17.1%) | 94.7% | 0.0% (N/A) |
| Days on Market | 17 (-67.6%) | 53 | 0 (N/A) |
| Days of Inventory | 80 (+33.3%) | 60 | 0 (N/A) |
Last month the RE Report sales data showed just 3 closed sales, a tiny pool for analysis, but at least it’s something! Prices are similar month-over-month with a higher average, and the sales to list price ratio has also increased. Inventory doubled since last month and is sky high compared to last year, but it’s still in the single digits. Homes are taking about 2.5 weeks to sell on average, though market absorption (days of inventory) have slowed with the jump in listings.
Compared to other parts of the Valley, this city didn’t experience the same dramatic plunge last summer, and it may not be rebounding with the same heat this year. Since there were no sales in August 2022 to compare August 2023 sales against, let’s have a look at last month’s chart.
July: 2 Sales
| Trends At a Glance | Jul 2023 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $3,532,500 (+10.4%) | $3,200,000 | $4,400,000 (-19.7%) |
| Average Price | $3,532,500 (+12.5%) | $3,140,000 | $4,304,190 (-17.9%) |
| No. of Sales | 2 (-33.3%) | 3 | 5 (-60.0%) |
| Pending | 3 (-50.0%) | 6 | 8 (-62.5%) |
| Active | 4 (0.0%) | 4 | 6 (-33.3%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 94.7% (-5.2%) | 99.8% | 108.0% (-12.3%) |
| Days on Market | 53 (+125.0%) | 23 | 23 (+132.3%) |
| Days of Inventory | 60 (+55.2%) | 39 | 36 (+66.7%) |
Low to no inventory has been the norm here for a while. It’s important to take the numbers in these tables with a grain of salt!
The 2023 June and July markets appear distinctly cooler than this time last year, however low inventory and few sales in this small community can shift the numbers very drastically very quickly. Comparing August 2023 against the July 2023 market, last summer was looking hotter overall with more sales, higher sales prices, and less inventory.
The Monte Sereno housing market remains in high demand. This small city tends to hold value well, and at a higher price point it doesn’t always show as strong a market change as other parts of the valley.
For those considering buying or selling, it’s important to look at the actual listings for each and every sale with similar features, size, amenities to get a sense of the home’s particular subset of the market.
Next, let’s look at the live charts from Altos to see how active listings reflect the market.
More Live Altos Research Charts for the Monte Sereno Real Estate Market
The Monte Sereno real estate market, by price quartile.
In early spring 2023, it looks like the lower two price tiers are holding their value compared to last year while the upper price points are looking a lot less stable with stronger up-down swings and fewer sales to compare.
Average DOM by price point.
Occasionally a price point will have had little enough activity that the chart makes great leaps when there’s an update. You can often tell where demand is based on how the days on market are arranged:
The extreme shifts in the luxury tier makes it a little hard to read the other price points in the chart above, so here’s a closer look at the average days on market for the other three tiers:
Most of the market is selling quickly right now, and appears relatively stable overall.
Inventory for all Monte Sereno listings and homes for sale over the last few years.
After hitting rock-bottom levels that February 2019, inventory skyrocketed in mid- to late-2019 giving buyers and agents a hopeful outlook on 2020… before it came crashing down again. Beginning in late winter 2020, inventory plunged again and it’s remained low ever since, falling to new extremes in early 2022. These dips and peaks certainly won’t correct the nearly-perpetual low inventory!
About the City
Monte Sereno is a scenic, upscale residential community of about 4,000 people. It’s located adjacent to the town of Los Gatos and the city of Saratoga, California. There are no business properties in Monte Sereno – just Daves Avenue School, homes, the post office, and the city office building along Highway 9. It is semi-rural.
Some folks mistakenly think that Los Gatos and Monte Sereno have the same real estate market. They are sometimes quite different, particularly as prices are higher in Monte Sereno and about 1/3 of Los Gatos is served by the Campbell or Union School Districts (while only a tiny sliver of MS is in those districts).
More info on this city: Official Monte Sereno city website and Wikipedia article on Monte Sereno
Monte Sereno Real Estate
With very few exceptions, Monte Sereno consists of houses and estates or luxury homes (there are a few townhouses). Most lots are larger, usually at least a quarter acre lot. One neighborhood enjoys a shared stable and horseback riding trails (those homes are on about 1/2 acre lots). This can vary tremendously.
A move-in ready house will not likely be found for less than two million dollars, and will more likely cost twice as much. The last time a home was sold for less than $1 million dollars in Monte Sereno was in 2012 (according to the MLS), over a decade ago. Even then that was a truly rare occurrence, only for out of the ordinary homes! Out of the 170 sales recorded on the MLS in the years 2020 – 2022 only 6 homes have sold below $2 million in this city (and the lowest was $1.69M)! It is not uncommon to spend upwards of $3.5 million in home buying there.
Final note on this area and market influences- while nearly all Monte Sereno properties are within the boundaries of the Los Gatos Union School District and the Los Gatos – Saratoga Joint Union High School District, a small handful has Campbell schools with the Campbell Union High School District. Homes in the latter area will sell for a bit less, so sales there will pull the average and median sales price down a little and not give an accurate impression for most of the city’s real estate market.
Find Homes for Sale in Monte Sereno, California
Please click on this link to view homes for sale in the city of Monte Sereno:
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