by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Sep 6, 2023 | Market Reports, Most Popular Articles, Sunnyvale
The Sunnyvale real estate market, like the rest of Santa Clara County, has remained hot with a couple of cooling datapoints, some of which is seasonally typical.
Sunnyvale real estate market trends and stats at a glance
Here is a quick rundown of the trends at a glance for the Sunnyvale real estate market, with more in the charts below:
- The average sale price of Sunnyvale homes dropped compared to July after climbing for months.
- Prices are now up year over year by 11%.
- Inventory has continued to fall, with a meager 13 listings (single family houses) in Sunnyvale on the last day of August.
- Pending sales are down, monthly and annually, but the culprit is lack of inventory, not lack of buyer interest. Note the ratio of pending sales to available listings. That tells the story best. There are literally more than twice as many homes pending as there are for sale.
- The sale to list price ratio dipped a bit to 107.0%, down from 108.1% in July. This is far above August 2022.
PLEASE visit our ReReport page for data here, throughout Santa Clara County, and also for San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties.
(If you’re viewing this on a mobile phone, swipe horizontally to see the full chart if it goes off the screen.)
| Trends At a Glance |
Aug 2023 |
Previous Month |
Year-over-Year |
| Median Price |
$2,150,000 (-9.4%) |
$2,372,500 |
$1,937,500 (+11.0%) |
| Average Price |
$2,211,900 (-7.9%) |
$2,401,510 |
$1,979,740 (+11.7%) |
| No. of Sales |
43 (+7.5%) |
40 |
34 (+26.5%) |
| Pending |
31 (-8.8%) |
34 |
46 (-32.6%) |
| Active |
13 (-23.5%) |
17 |
50 (-74.0%) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
107.0% (-1.0%) |
108.1% |
99.4% (+7.7%) |
| Days on Market |
13 (-13.6%) |
15 |
24 (-46.8%) |
| Days of Inventory |
9 (-28.9%) |
13 |
44 (-79.4%) |
You may also want to see how Sunnyvale stacks up to other communities in Santa Clara County. If so, click to see the PDF Real Estate Report for Santa Clara County, updated monthly.
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by Mary Pope-Handy | May 12, 2023 | Almaden Valley (SJ), Cambrian Park (SJ), Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Market Reports, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose (all areas), Santa Clara, Saratoga, Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale, Willow Glen (SJ)
Is it a good time to sell a home in Silicon Valley? One of the best ways to get a pulse on the real estate market with an eye to selling or buying is with the months of inventory (MOI), also known as the absorption rate. This is the months of supply of housing for sale.
The months of inventory tells us how fast the current inventory of properties will be sold off if sales were to continue at the same rate with no new inventory were to come on the market.
The easiest analogy is with a bathtub full of water. If we added no more water to the tub, and the drain were opened, how much time would it take for the water to be depleted if it continued to empty at the same rate? That’s the question being answered with the absorption rate of inventory.
Or, simpler still, if you have an hourglass that you turn over, how long does it take for the sand to empty from the top (since you cannot add more sand to that end)?
How to calculate the months of inventory or MOI
The way to calculate the months of inventory is simple: find the current available inventory of homes for sale (not under contract or sale pending), then find the number of homes with that exact criteria which have closed escrow in the last 30 days. Divide the first by the second and you get the months of inventory. Or, I can just use the stats program on the MLS to generate that number, as I did today.
Earlier I pulled this data from MLSListings.com, our local MLS association (of which I am a member) and I ran the numbers for single family homes (houses and duet homes) in Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose (all areas combined), Santa Clara, Saratoga, Sunnyvale. Separately, I also ran this same query for the City of San Jose by district.
The months of inventory by city or town in Santa Clara County
A balanced market for our area is 2-3 months of inventory (for most of the US it’s 4-6 months). Two months or less is a seller’s market, and one month or less is a very hot seller’s market.
Here’s a look at the months of inventory by city or town in SCC in April 2023 for single family homes. As you can see, the vast majority of the county is a strong seller’s market, with the only exception being Los Altos Hills.
Which are the hottest markets? They’re the ones with the smallest months of inventory -Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Milpitas and many more are well under the 2 month market. A few are a tad higher and in the “balanced market” area, and only one is in a deep buyer’s market.
The months of inventory by area within the City of San Jose
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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.
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Feb 25, 2020 | Almaden Valley (SJ), Blossom Valley (SJ), Cambrian Park (SJ), Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Market Info, Market Reports, Mountain View, Neighborhoods, Palo Alto, San Jose (all areas), Saratoga, Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale, Willow Glen (SJ)
It can be really challenging for people moving to Silicon Valley to get a sense of real estate prices, and perhaps more, comparing cost of from one town or district to another.
One question I get a lot is this: what does it cost to buy a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house of about 2000 square feet?
So to answer this question, let’s see what houses like this are selling for (4 bed, 2 bath, appx 2000 SF or 185 square meters) and see how the cost looks in one Santa Clara County / Silicon Valley area versus another.
Comparing Costs
Today I compared several areas and cities using this criteria: single family homes of 1800 – 2200 SF, 3-5 bedrooms, 2-3 bathrooms, on lot sizes of 6000 SF to 10,000 SF. Normally I would chart this over the last 2 months, or 60 days, but because of the low inventory causing the sellers market I have expanded the search to the last 3 months, or 90 days, for a better range. Because some areas have had a scarcity of inventory, I’ve added an addition to the chart titled NoS for Number of Sales within the given range.
Here’s how it shakes out in the “west valley areas” along the Highway 85 corridor, most of which are known to have good to great public schools. What areas are most affordable? One way of analyzing this is the “price per square foot” figure. Whenever I update the chart, I re-arrange the order of the cities from high to low based on the price per square foot, although there’s usually minimal movement.
Within this range, Campbell only had one sale over the last 90 days, so data for that segment may or may not be a good average. Both Los Altos and Saratoga had no sales within the last 90 days within these criteria, so their searches have been expanded to 0-180 days (or 6 months / half a year) and 0-120 days (or 4 months / a quarter year) respectively to provide data for comparison for this chart. Now that we have the data, let’s analyze it!
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Jan 21, 2019 | Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Selling Tips, Sunnyvale
It’s a seller’s market in Silicon Valley right now. Many sellers are getting multiple offers and overbids, especially in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. For home owners trying to maximize their sales price, does it make sense to have an “offer deadline”?
Maybe.
If you are pretty confident that you can get multiple offers, the deadline helps in a few ways.
- it prevents the offer situation from being a mere “foot race” (fastest one wins, rather than highest offer and best terms)
- it allows everyone enough time to see the house, read the inspections, disclosures etc.
- it provides enough time for the sellers and agents to plan
As with all strategic plans, this one can backfire too. If you or your agent publishes an offer deadline and then no bids are forthcoming, it’s more than just a let down. It’s a market signal that this home is overvalued by its owner and agent. Then, suddenly, it can appear to be an old or stale listing, even if it’s just been on the market 7 to 10 days.
Many real estate agents take a middle path, saying nothing about offers until agents ask. If they are asked, they will give a date in the future – usually a couple of days after the open house. But the MLS won’t say it for these agents unless they hear many buyers’ agents asking about offer presentation. They don’t want to look bad, they don’t want your house to look bad.
We never know until a property goes on the market how it will fare. It is wise to be cautious about advertising an offer date unless you are very certain that you will be seeing multiples! The market right now is a little funny. Homes priced aggressively are getting multiple offers. Homes priced AT value are not moving quite so fast. And homes price for values in spring of 2018 are not selling well at all.
by Mary Pope-Handy | May 10, 2014 | Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Market Info, Market Reports, San Jose (all areas), Santa Clara, Santa Clara County (all), Sunnyvale, West San Jose, Working in real estate
Today I’m sharing with you Silicon Valley real estate statistics which were presented to me by my company, Sereno Group. These are “by school district” and I think you will find them immensely insightful! First, though, a brief commentary on the overall findings, then statistics for single family homes (mostly houses but a few “duet homes”) in Santa Clara County, and lastly, the same info but for condominiums and townhouses.
Please find the real estate market statistics by school district in the Santa Clara County area next. Please note that the San Jose Unified School District is extremely large and varied, and the numbers would be very different if you were narrowing it to Almaden Valley with Leland High School as opposed to some areas which are not performing nearly as well.
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Jun 27, 2013 | Market Reports, Sunnyvale
Today I spent a little time gathering the month over month and year over year median sales price changes in Sunnyvale from my Santa Clara County ReReport (you can do it too, it just takes time). Sunnyvale has felt like a bubble in that the appreciation has been too steep, too long for it to be sustainable.
Is it a bubble? The market is calming down or leveling out a bit in many places – but how about Sunnyvale?. Jobs are strong. Many firms are hiring. There remains a housing shortage. But the rate of appreciation has been crazy high. Rather than speculate about how good (sellers) or bad (buyers) it is, let’s see how strong the change has been.
The image below shows the increase or decrease of the median sales price for single family homes in Sunnyvale, first month over month, and then year over year from May 2011 to May 2013. The the last 12 months, the year over year average change to the median sales price has been a whopping 22%. One month it was 60%! (It was when that was happening that I screamed “bubble” on this blog.) (more…)
by Mary Pope-Handy | Jun 7, 2013 | Almaden Valley (SJ), Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Market Reports, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Uncategorized
Days on market for several “west valley” communities within Silicon Valley
For people relocating to Silicon Valley, often there’s not just one city, town or area which seems like a good fit. Sometimes it may come down to what your money can buy or how difficult it is to purchase in one area versus another. This is frequently the case with the “West Valley” areas where schools are good and the neighborhoods are tidy.
There are two statistics which are especially helpful in understanding the Santa Clara County real estate market. One is the “days on market” or DOM. The shorter this is, the hotter the market – and the harder it is to purchase. The second is the sale price to list price ratio, which hints at the existence of multiple offers, overbids, and buyers giving away all of their rights.
Today, then, we’ll have a look at these, starting with Almaden, the southernmost area, and working our way north along the coastal range. The charts below are all for single family homes (houses and duet homes, not condos or townhomes).
Almaden Valley is a district within the city of San Jose. Its boundaries roughly follow the 95120 zip code, though there are some parts of nearby zip codes which somewhat overlap into Almaden too. How’s the Almaden market? Red hot! Days on market is crazy low – a mere 16! And the average sale price is almost 104% of list price…and rising!
| Trends At a Glance |
May 2013 |
Previous Month |
Year-over-Year |
| Median Price |
$0 (N/A) |
$0 |
$0 (N/A) |
| Average Price |
$0 (N/A) |
$0 |
$0 (N/A) |
| No. of Sales |
0 (N/A) |
0 |
0 (N/A) |
| Pending |
0 (N/A) |
0 |
0 (N/A) |
| Active |
0 (N/A) |
0 |
0 (N/A) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
0.0% (N/A) |
0.0% |
0.0% (N/A) |
| Days on Market |
0 (N/A) |
0 |
0 (N/A) |
| Days of Inventory |
0 (N/A) |
0 |
0 (N/A) |
Los Gatos is a bit north of Almaden and has many micro-markets within it based on proximity to downtown Los Gatos, the school districts, view of the hills or valley and many other factors. (This is “in town”, zip codes 95030 and 95032, not the Los Gatos Mountains 95033.) The market is also red hot in Los Gatos! The days on market are significantly longer (36 as opposed to Almaden’s 16), but the sale price to list price ratio is a tad higher here.
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by Mary Pope-Handy | May 20, 2013 | Cupertino, Local History, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Sunnyvale
The other day I was hunting for local maps of Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) dating back 100 years or so, and although I didn’t find exactly what I wanted, I did find a treasure trove that I hadn’t expected to find at all.
Here please find a tiny snippet of a USGS Map from the late 1890s (actually part of the Palo Alto Map). According to my husband, who has a hobby of viewing and collecting maps, each “dot” on this image represents a house. If that is the case, you can see how sparcely populated Saratoga and Cupertino were at this time.
And what is that Azule Springs? Was it another hot springs type resort, like Saratoga Springs? A map like this raises a lot of questions!
If you love – or at least enjoy – history, I invite you to visit the USGS website and look at the historic maps there. One section includes Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and the coastal areas such as Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. Another section of the map includes Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Almaden, Cambrian Park, Santa Clara and many parts of San Jose.
It’s fun to see where things “used to be” and how they “used to be called”. Take a few minutes and enjoy!
by Mary Pope-Handy | Feb 9, 2013 | Cupertino, Los Gatos, Market Info, Market Reports, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Jose (all areas), Santa Clara, Santa Clara County (all), Saratoga, Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale
A common buyer question right now is whether or not the real estate market in Silicon Valley is overheated, if we are experiencing “another bubble”. If you visit open houses in places like Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and in many parts of the Peninsula, you may see droves of buyers and be convinced that the market is, in fact, overheated.
Silicon Valley encompasses a large area, primarily Santa Clara County and some of San Mateo County, but a few sections of neighboring counties as well. Generalizing about huge regions is tricky. Overall, though, it is a deep seller’s market throughout Silicon Valley. But there is a great deal of variation from one city or town to the next, as well as between ages of homes, quality of schools and neighborhoods, and price point. Today we will focus primarily on a couple of statistics: the ratio of sales price to list price for houses in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, and ratio of new listings to sold and closed ones of houses in these counties.
First, though, a look at the two counties combined to show the broadest common real estate trends for Silicon Valley in relation to the sales price to list price ratio and “days to sell”.
Santa Clara County and San Mateo County sale price to list price ratio and average days to sell
The chart above gives a snapshot of the Silicon Valley market, which appears to have had a peak in about October – November 2012. likely reflecting sales 45-60 days earlier, when the days to sell hit a yearlong low. Since that time, though, things appear to have calmed down.
New listings of houses for sale versus sold homes in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties
A few days ago, before getting the stats for closed sales in January 2013, I wrote about the trends for new listings of houses in relation to the closed sales in Santa Clara County in late fall 2012. What we were seeing was that homes in escrow were closing or finalizing the sales faster than new inventory was coming on the market. The closings in January, though,reflecting sales which began in December, a trend reversal, back to a more normal ratio, in both Santa Clara County and San Mateo County. December is often the softest month of the year, with few listings relative to the rest of the year and sales at lower price points. Looks like this December followed that pattern to a point. Have a look at the charts for both counties and notice the trend reversal, below.
Santa Clara County New Listings vs Sold Houses last 12 months
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