The Silicon Valley real esate market is heating up but it’s not heating “evenly”.  Some price points and areas (or school districts) enjoy a hot seller’s market while other segments are lagging.  A big factor in the overall health of the realty market in the San Jose area is the percentage of listings which are distressed properties, meaning short sales and bank owned homes.  Today we’ll see the ratios of these homes to the regular sales using graphs to get a quick visual take on the market trends and statistics.

Today we’ll look at homes listed on the MLS in all of Santa Clara County (including San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga etc.) by price point. All of the graphs in this post will reference houses and duet homes combinesd(about 99% houses), not condos or townhomes.

Overall, it looks like about 1/3 of all homes for sale in the county are distressed sales. Next let’s look at this data by price point and then we’ll check it by area.  The images below will be smaller but the colors will represent the same elements in each one (green being regular sales, brick being short sales and light orange being REOs).

Ratio of regular sales to short sales and bank owned homes in Silicon Valley by price point

1. $599,999 and under

This first graph by pricing reflects houses (and duet homes) for sale in Santa Clara County which are under $600,000.

For this group, less than 50% (the green segment) is “regular sales”.  Most of the housing market in this entry-level pricing is distressed properties for sale.

Notice, too, that there are far more short sales than REOs or bank owned homes.

2. $600,000 to $999,999

The next group is homes priced between $600,000 and $999,000 – so these are primarily “move up” home prices, though in some parts of Siicon Valley (such as Palo Alto, Saratoga, Los Altos and a few others), these homes would be a first house, most likely.

3. $1 million to $2 million dollars

The third grouping consists of Santa Clara County houses for sale which are listed between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000.

These are nicer homes but usually not luxury housing per se in most parts of the county. In the more affordable areas such as Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and east San Jose areas, though, these could also constitute estate or luxury homes. (Not in Los Gatos, Monte Sereno or some west valley areas).

It is interesting to see that in this upper price point there are very few distressed sales – almost all of them are “regular sales”.

4. Homes priced at more than $2,000,000 – the Luxury Homes

Luxury homes in Santa Clara County vary but most are in the single million digit prices and very few selling more than $10 or $20 million  (though you may have heard about the recent, history-making $100,000 million sale in Los Altos Hills).

Tomorrow check back to see how these types of numbers shake out by city, town or district – we will view a sampling of them.