Silicon Valley Real Estate Market Trend Report:

Santa Clara County (SCC): And The Beat Goes On

Sales prices for single-family, re-sale homes set new highs for the fifth month in a row. The median sales price was $1,747,620 last month, a gain of 26.6% compared to last year. That’s the twentieth 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 for the fifth month in a row. It rose to $2,139,880. A gain of 26.7% year-over-year.

The sales price to list price ratio went from 110.1% to 109.9%. Multiple offers continue to be the norm.

Sales of single-family, re-sale homes were up 38.3% year-over-year in June. There were 1,162 homes sold in Santa Clara County last month. The monthly average since 2000 is 987.

This was the tenth month in a row that home sales were higher than the year before.

Pending sales were up 29.1% year-over-year.

Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 32.1% compared to last year. That is the twenty-second month in a row inventory has been lower than the year before. As of July 5th, there were 621 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 three days to 15 days compared to April. The average since 2003 is 89.

It took only thirteen 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 14.4% from last June. The average sales price gained 12.2% year-over-year.

Condo sales were up 114.2% year-over-year. There were 557 condos sold in June.

The sales price to list price ratio went from 104.6% to 104.7%.

Condo inventory fell 17.1% compared to last June.

As of July 5th, there were 387 condos for sale in Santa Clara County. The average since January 2000 is 757.

Days of inventory fell three days to twenty.

It took an average of nineteen days to sell a condo last month.

If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.

June 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

Core Three Point Four (SCC & SMC)

July 2, 2021 — Things here in the U.S. are in a far better place at the turn of midyear compared to where they began. Post holidays, and through mid-winter, COVID-19 was raging anew and widespread vaccination efforts just getting underway. Hundreds of thousands of new cases were being reported daily, and health care systems were again struggling to keep up. Despite the viral surge, and amid both continuing and new restrictions, the economy was recovering well, but unevenly, necessitating several new rounds of fiscal support to accompany the Fed’s all-in stance for monetary policy.

Fast forward six months and the picture is very changed, if not completely. Despite a new Delta variant that threatens to become an echo surge, reported cases of coronavirus are running at levels comparable to the very first days of the outbreak. Inoculation rates have slowed of late, but something on the order of 55% of eligible Americans have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and about 47% are fully vaccinated.

Spurred on by re-opening, removal of restriction and blasts of cash from the federal government, the economy again accelerated, with GDP growth running a 6.4% annual rate in the first quarter and a current estimate of over 7% in the second quarter. Although job growth overall may be a little less robust than some forecasts may have expected, about 3.2 million people have rejoined the workforce over the last six months, and claims for all forms of jobless assistance have retreated from well over 1 million claims every week to something less than half that.

Another facet that has changed appreciably in the last six months is the inflation picture. At the turn of the year, inflation was still tame, with inflation as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditure series running at just a 1.4% rate in both “headline” and core reckonings. Five months on (June data not available until July’s end), these figures are 3.9% and 3.4%, with price increases now at 13- and 29-year highs, respectively.

With a strong economy in place and core prices now above the Fed’s 2% target for the last couple of months, the Fed is starting to make rumblings about future changes in policy. At the turn of the year, the official stance was that rock-bottom rates and QE-style bond-buying programs would run indefinitely, and Fed members didn’t expect to be raising the federal funds rate until perhaps 2024. Six months later, no changes have yet occurred, but the Fed is said to be discussing the tapering of bond buying (Our guess: later this year) and estimates of when a change to interest rate policy will come have advanced into 2023, with a majority of Fed members expecting not one but perhaps two increases in short-term rates by that time.

Change has come rapidly across some very important components of the current environment. Surprisingly, long-term interest rates and mortgage rates have been well behaved, rising from record lows to start the year, increasing by about a half-percentage point, then settling back to approximately the middle of this range and holding there for 12 weeks now. Although fewer remain in the eligible pool, this has continued to allow homeowners to refinance profitably or extract cash from their homes. For homebuyers, it has been both a blessing and a curse, since even as they can help to keep monthly payments relatively affordable, low rates continue to fuel demand for homes for which there is little supply, in turn pushing the prices of homes ever higher.

With challenges facing both new and existing home markets, sales of homes have been a little soggy of late, if still at historically sound levels. However, there is at least one indicator that suggests that sales may pick up a bit again, as the National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index for May rose by 8% for the month. This measure of signed sales contracts presages the actual tally of homes sold by a month or two, since it takes time to get from contact signing to closing. Sales of existing homes have been generally cooling this year; after peaking at an annual rate of 6.73 million last October they have settled to May’s 5.8 million pace. The bump in signed contracts in May should push this figure up a bit by July, even if not all deals actually come to fruition.

Despite very stable mortgage rates, applications for mortgage credit dropped off by 6.9% in the week ending June 25. Requests for purchase-money mortgages slid by 4.8% while those for refinancing retreated by 8.2%. With conditions in mortgage markets largely unchanged, there doesn’t seem to be any specific reason for the drop in requests for financing; looking back at the same weeks over the last five years it seems as though there is often a dip in applications in around this time of the year. Perhaps with many schools coming to the end of the academic year folks simple have other things to do, or perhaps vacations beckon. Whatever the reason, fundamentals for mortgages haven’t changed all that much, but with the Independence Day holiday now upon us, we may not see an uptick in applications for a week or more yet.

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.

Real estate related Articles

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 SHOWS ANNUAL HOME PRICE GAINS SURGED TO 14.6% IN APRIL

NEW YORK, JUNE 29, 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 April 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 HEAR

U.S. Housing Markets Moving Into Rent Territory for First Time in Over 8 Years: Report

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San Mateo County (SMC): Home Sale Prices Set New Highs, Again

Sale prices of single-family, re-sale homes new highs last month for the second month in a row.

The median sales price for single-family, re-sale homes rose 30.2% compared to last year. That’s the thirteenth 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 23.5% year-over-year. That’s the nineteenth month in a row the average sales price has been higher than the year before.

The sales price to list price ratio rose to 110.3% from 109.3%.

Sales of single-family, re-sale homes in San Mateo County were up for the twelfth month in a row, year-over-year, in June. They gained 31.4% year-over-year. There were 439 homes sold in San Mateo County last month. The average since 2000 is 398.

Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 37.7% compared to last year. As of July 5th, there were 307 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, stayed at twenty days.

It took fifteen 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 rose 5.3% year-over-year.

Year-over-year, the average sales price rose 6%.

Condo sales were up 106.4% year-over-year. There were 161 condos sold last month. The average since January 2003 is 122.

Inventory was down 21.1% year-over-year.

As of July 5th, there were 131 condos for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2003 is 350.

Days of inventory fell to twenty-four from thirty .

It took an average of nineteen days to sell a condo last month.

If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.

If you are planning on selling your property, call me for a free comparative market analysis.

June 2021 Sales Statistics (SMC)

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.