The Silicon Valley real estate market has taken its proverbial foot off the gas pedal. Still a robust market climate, especially for this time of year, the market has cooled a bit. An indication of this is that there are fewer offers per listing than earlier in the year. Now, some of this is normal seasonal variations but, I think, some has to do with that a fever-pitched market can’t last indefinitely. Buyers get burned too many times in multiple offer situations and pull out of contention for a while. Prices thus go into a “choppy” time not really going up nor down. That’s where we are. However, the September Silicon Valley real estate trends do continue as a seller’s market but there are more opportunities for buyers to participate without as much competition. Buyer participation engaged with an adviser helping with a Silicon Valley real estate search becomes much more successful when coupled with the adviser’s thoughtful, insightful analysis of the supply-demand forces in the immediate area under consideration and an appropriate offer strategy. This helps attain a much higher level of success than the guesswork approach employed by most buyers and their agents.
Median prices of single family residences in September stood at $780,000 for Santa Clara County and $915,000 for San Mateo County. That is an increase of 20.2% for Santa Clara and 15.8% for San Mateo County. Median prices fluctuate month to month depending upon the mix of homes that sell — some times more higher priced homes sell and some times lower or moderate priced homes do as the mix is in constant change. That is why it is best to do year over year comparisons.
The percentage of homes that has sold above list price dropped a bit from the prior month to 62% for Santa Clara County and 63% for San Mateo County. The highest and lowest readings were the Cupertino and Sunnyvale area had 77% and the Los Gatos and Saratoga area had 36%. For San Mateo County the highest and lowest readings were the North market area comprising Brisbane, Colma, Daly City, Pacifica, San Bruno and South San Francisco had 73% whereas the San Mateo Coast had just 18% for the Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Moss Beach, Montara area.
What’s hot and what’s cool — in Santa Clara County with an average days of unsold inventory (DUI) at 45, the hottest market area is Cupertino and Sunnyvale with just 20 days. The coolest market area was Los Gatos and Saratoga with a DUI of 96 days. For San Mateo County with an average DUI of 56, the hottest market area was the Foster City and Redwood Shores area with 27 and the coolest was the expensive areas of Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, Woodside, Hillsborough with a DUI reading of 175.
As to the amount of available homes for sale, this remains low and below average. Matter of fact, for this time of year the Silicon Valley real estate market inventory is at its lowest level in at least the past 15 years!
Let me know if you have any comments, questions or observations in your neighborhood. Thanks for reading!
Behind the Real Estate Scenes in Silicon Valley 