San Mateo County Market Snapshot–Are We Treading Water?
Those of you who follow our market updates know we put our hometown, Belmont, under a market microscope every month to get a glimpse as to where the market appears to be headed.
Of course that really is living in a Petri dish when it comes to the real estate market as a whole.
Real estate is very local—what goes on in even one part of a city could be entirely different from another. That said eventually positive market trends trickle down and negative ones up.
As evidence of this phenomenon one can go back and look at our charts from 2007 when Palo Alto was still doing famously yet Daly City may as well have slid into the ocean (many homeowners probably wish it had).
Today we visit the numbers—year over year—for San Mateo County as a whole, hoping to see some trends that will give us an inkling as to where consumer sentiment is, as reflected in sales, median price, etc.
SALES
|
New Listings |
Current Inventory |
Closed Sales |
Average DOM |
Average Sales Price |
Median Sales Price |
% LP Rec'd |
Total $ Vol |
|
2011 545 |
1400 |
233 |
74 |
786,509 |
587,500 |
96.48 |
182,470,145 |
|
2010 484 |
1156 |
229 |
82 |
840,235 |
650,000 |
97.17 |
192,413,866 |
|
2009 530 |
1452 |
163 |
74 |
683,900 |
553,750 |
97.20 |
110,791,806 |
|
|
It’s easy to see that the ripples of consumer uncertainty could easily capsize the boat of recovery if the tides of low interest rates come in too fast.
Sales are certainly better than the low of 2009 and remain steady as they did in our Belmont example. But as in the Belmont report the median price showed a decline in home values since last January. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are a potential home buyer and it doesn’t mean values are still dropping, just that they did drop year over year.
Interest rates are going up, and have done so rapidly in the last few months—around ¾ of a point. That hurts the ability for people to qualify for a home and with less demand there’s a potential for prices to decrease further.
But as we cautioned ourselves, we are comparing 2010–a year of government sponsored tax rebates to 2011 without. Let's see if our minnow of a recovery can weather the storm without a life raft.
Thanks for checking back in with us.
*Data San Mateo County MLS.
Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment purposes only and includes no legal, accounting or real estate advice nor is this response in tended to be specific to your situation-consult a specialist for your specific situation.
