Santa Clara County (SCC): Home Sales Prices Set New Highs, Again, in March
The median sales price for single-family, re-sale homes set a new high for the second month in a row. It was $1,600,000 last month, a gain of 14.3% compared to last year. That’s the seventeenth month in a row the median sales price has been higher than the year before.
The average sales price for single-family, re-sale homes also set a new high last month. It was up 14.9% year-over-year.
The sales price to list price ratio went from 106.5% to 108.9%. Multiple offers are the norm.
Sales of single-family, re-sale homes were up 40.2% year-over-year in March. There were 858 homes sold in Santa Clara County last month. The monthly average since 2000 is 987.
This was the seventh month in a row that home sales were higher than the year before.
Pending sales were up 76.8% year-over-year.
Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 11.1% compared to last year. That is the nineteenth month in a row inventory has been lower than the year before. As of April 5th, there were 595 homes for sale in Santa Clara County. The average since January 2000 is 2,703.
Days of Inventory, or how long it would take to sell all homes listed for sale at the current rate of sales, fell six days to 21 days compared to February. The average since 2003 is 89.
It took only eighteen days to sell a home last month. That is the time from when a home is listed for sale to when it goes into contract.
The median sales price for condos was up 10.3% from last March. The average sales price gained 10.9% year-over-year.
Condo sales were up 46.5% year-over-year. There were 422 condos sold in March.
The sales price to list price ratio went from 102.4% to 102.9%.
Condo inventory rose 49.5% compared to last March.
As of April 5th, there were 414 condos for sale in Santa Clara County. The average since January 2000 is 757.
Days of inventory stayed at twenty-nine.
It took an average of twenty-nine days to sell a condo last month.
If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis
March 2021 Sales Statistics (SCC)
* Total inventory is active listings plus pending listings. Active listings do not include 
pending.
More information is available in our on-line report at http://avi.rereport.com/market_reports
Filling The Holes (SCC & SMC)
April 2, 2021 — The economy was doing well and actually was starting to pick up some steam in early 2020 after being damped by all manner of “trade wars” with China and others back in 2019. Agreements being put in place and lessening of rhetoric set a new playing field, and uncertainty was beginning to lift, allowing for acceleration of growth again.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, injecting unprecedented uncertainties, cratering economies across the globe with restrictions on activity and creating gigantic holes in nearly all facets of every economy. At least initially, those holes were kept from getting deeper by extraordinary responses by central banks to create and promote liquidity and market function, and were later joined by varying rounds of fiscal stimulus to help people and industries bridge the gap the virus caused.
As beneficial as these programs may be for many, they can have disruptive effects of their own. Ultra-low rates may be great for borrowers, but bad for savers; high levels of money sloshing about an economy may lead to frothy asset prices. Blowout spending programs by the government can add to aggregate demand, which can outstrip supply, creating price pressures (transient or not) and conversely, financing all of this by issuing record levels of bonds may see greater bond supply than investor demand, pressing interest rates higher. To varying degrees, all of these have been in play so far in 2021, and interest rates and mortgage rates have firmed up considerably.
For the most part, though, the holes in the economy here and elsewhere remain. Filling them all completely will take time, but we are starting to see important steps in that process; in fact, these holes in many ways are filling up faster than had generally been expected. For example, the Federal Reserve has ratcheted up its expectations for growth and inflation notably over the last few meetings; the housing market went from a pretty pedestrian rate of existing home sales and relatively modest price gains to 14 year highs for sales and 15% annual rates of price increases.
As expected, construction spending throttled back in February as wicked winter weather curtailed activity. Overall outlays for construction projects declined by 0.8%, dragged down by a 0.2% decline in residential projects, a 1% decline in non-residential spending and a 1.7% drop in public-works project outlays. President Biden has just outlined a plan to spend a couple of trillion dollars on infrastructure spending, but a review of the bill suggest that perhaps only half of the dollars are actually aimed at roads, bridges, rails and the like. Regardless of that, spending for housing will show a sharp revival for March and non-residential will probably also recover a bit, too.
The National Association of Realtors index of Pending Home Sales dropped by 10.6% in February. Weather plays a role here — few want to venture out in thigh deep snow or bone-chilling cold to see homes for sale — but a serious lack of inventory to review even if one wanted to venture out, prices that are rising quickly and financing costs that were firming during the month were also likely deterrents to getting a contract to buy an existing home.
The rise in mortgage rates has leveled off, at least for now, but the increase has had the expected tempering effect on mortgage applications. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported another 2.2% decline in requests for mortgage credit in the week ending March 26, the seventh decline in the last eight weeks. Applications for purchase-money mortgages eased by 1.5%, breaking a four-week string of increases, while those for refinancing slid another 2.5%, also making it declines in 7 of the last 8 week. Refi activity is approximately at a May 2020 level, when mortgage rates were last at about present levels, give or take a few basis points.
Call or email me if you have any questions.
For further details and a city-by-city breakdown statistics, go to http://avi.rereport.com/market_reports.
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| WSJ 3-30- 2021 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America: “House-Price Inflation” in all its Glory. March Update By Wolf Richter |
| WSJ 3-18- 2021 | Google says it is doubling down on the office By Parmy Olson |
| WSJ 2-6- 202 | The staff of WSJ |
California homeowners interested in building accessory dwelling units on their property just caught a break, potentially shaving off thousands of dollars in fees and permits.
In a move proponents say will help ease the Bay Area’s housing crisis, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed Senate Bill 1069, making the so-called “granny units” easier and less expensive to build throughout the state.
For more read California eases restrictions on ‘granny units’
and http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/AccessoryDwellingUnits.shtml
Helpful resource for home owners
Many new home owners or owners who consider remodeling or rebuilding their homes should take advantage of their county Tax Assessor web site. These web site and their respective city building departments web site typically have vest information regarding the process for applying for permits, the impact on their taxes and many other resources that home owners should be aware are available for them.
For the San Mateo County Tax Assessor office visit http://www.smcare.org/default.asp
For Santa Clara County Tax Assessor visit https://www.sccassessor.org/index.php
The Silicon Valley 150 Index Corner
The Silicon Valley’s Real estate market is a derivative of the local economy–it prospers and withers depending on how well the local innovation-based sector performs. The San Jose Mercury News tracks the performances of the largest 150 publicly traded companies headquartered in Silicon Valley through an index called the SV150, which may be found at www.mercurynews.com. Stocks are valued based on several criteria, but one of the more important criteria is a company’s future earnings. Therefore, I see the SV150 as a leading indicator for Silicon Valley’s real estate market.
Investors Corner
S&P CORELOGIC CASE-SHILLER INDEX REPORTS 11.2% ANNUAL HOME PRICE GAIN TO START 2021
NEW YORK, MARCH 30, 2021: S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) today released the latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Data released today for January 2021 show that home prices continue to increase across the U.S. More than 27 years of history are available for the data series, and can be accessed in full by going to click here
U.S. Housing Markets Moving Into Rent Territory for First Time in Over 8 Years: Report
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San Mateo County (SMC): Median Sales Price Sets New High, Again, in March
The median sales price for single-family, re-sale homes set a new high of $1,990,000 last month, for the second month in a row. It rose 13.7% compared to last year. That’s the tenth month in a row the median sales price has been higher than the year before.
The average sales price for single-family, re-sale homes was up 12.4% year-over-year.
The sales price to list price ratio rose to 106.7% from 104.8%.
Sales of single-family, re-sale homes in San Mateo County were up for the ninth month in a row, year-over-year, in March. They rose 27% year-over-year. There were 339 homes sold in San Mateo County last month. The average since 2000 is 398.
Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 0.6% compared to last year. As of April 5th, there were 327 homes for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2000 is 1,287.
Days of Inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all homes for sale divided by how many homes have sold, dropped to twenty-nine from thirty-seven days.
It took nineteen days, on average, to sell a home last month. That is the time from when a home is listed to when it goes into contract.
The median sales price for re-sale condos fell 8% year-over-year.
Year-over-year, the average sales price fell 4.9%.
Condo sales were up 4.4% year-over-year. There were 118 condos sold last month. The average since January 2003 is 122.
Inventory was up 88.2% year-over-year.
As of April 5th, there were 143 condos for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2003 is 350.
Days of inventory fell to thirty-six from thirty-seven.
It took an average of twenty-nine days to sell a condo last month.
If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.
Inventory was up 88.2% year-over-year.
As of April 5th, there were 143 condos for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2003 is 350.
Days of inventory fell to thirty-six from thirty-seven.
It took an average of twenty-nine days to sell a condo last month.
If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.
It took an average of thirty-five days to sell a condo last month.
If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.
March 2021 Sales Statistics (SMC)
* Total inventory is active listings plus pending listings. Active listings do not include pending.
You can get more information at: http://avi.rereport.com/market_reports
Call or email me if you have any questions.
For further details and a city-by-city breakdown statistics, go to http://avi.rereport.com/market_reports.
