Silicon Valley Real Estate Market Trend Report:

Santa Clara County (SCC): Sales Price to List Price Ratio Jumps

The sales price to list price ratio jumped to 104.4% from 100.9%. That’s the highest it has been since July 2018.
Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 43.8% compared to last year. That is the sixth month in a row inventory has been lower than the year before. As of March 5th, there were 607 homes for sale in Santa Clara County. The average since January 2000 is 2,703.
The median sales price for single-family, re-sale homes in February was up 13.7% compared to last year. It was up 12.5% from January.
The average sales price was up 8.5% year-over-year. It was up 8.7% compared to January.
Home sales rose 20.6% from January. They were down 3.7%, year-over-year. There were 469 homes sold in Santa Clara County last month. The average since 2000 is 987.
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 36 days compared to January. The average since 2003 is 89.
It took twenty-five 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 1.0% compared to January, but, it was down 4.5% from last February.
The average sales price rose 4.1% from January, but, it was down 2% year-over-year.
Condo sales were up 35.4% year-over-year. They were up 34.0% from January. There were 256 condos sold in February.
The sales price to list price ratio rose to 101.7% from 99.6%.
Condo inventory dropped 54.0% from last February.
As of March 5th, there were 233 condos for sale in Santa Clara County. The average since January 2000 is 757.
Days of inventory fell to twenty-five from thirty-six.
It took an average of thirty-one days to sell a condo last month.

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

February 2020 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

Panic. Pandemic. “Panicdemic?” (SCC & SMC)

Feb. 28, 2020 —It would seem that the only thing that is spreading faster than COVID-19 is the fear of the damage being done to economies across the globe. Even though the spread of the virus has not yet quite been called a pandemic, investors have moved from concern to panic, with major stock indexes moving into “correction” territory in just a few short trading sessions. Of course, some pundits have proffered that a part of the mass exit from stocks might be related to the Democratic party front-runner’s potential policies, but the effects of any candidates’ platform of course can’t be realized until after they have actually won both the nomination and the election.
As such, it’s all virus, all the time. The market panic over the possible pandemic left us considering that we need a new word to describe the market’s actions: Panicdemic, defined as a widespread fire sale of stocks by investors based purely on the fear of what might come to pass. While imperfect, its as good a portmanteau as any.
Mortgage rates that are likely to creep nearer to “all-time” lows probably won’t do much to improve sales of existing homes, where inventories of homes for sale are thin, but may enhance the uptrend in sales of new homes. In January, new home sales rose by 7.9%, a figure plausibly goosed by favorable weather conditions for the month. The 764,000 annual rate of sale was good enough to be a 12-plus year high, and lower mortgage helped provide at least some offset to cover the 13.4% month-to-month increase in the median price of a home sold. With the bump in sales, the number of units on hand relative to current sales slid back to 5.1 months, a little lower than is considered optimal, and there are 323,000 units built and ready to be sold and so this market segment is in healthier shape for potential homebuyers as the spring buying season kicks in. Inventories of existing homes for sale seem likely to be trimmed further if the National Association of Realtors index covering pending home sales pans out — the January increase of 5.2% comes at a time of already-record-low numbers of homes for sale. Hopefully, it is that new listings are happening but are being snapped up; otherwise there will be even less available for potential homebuyers to pick over.
Applications for purchase-money mortgages declined for a third consecutive week, according to the Mortgage Banks Association of America, falling by 3.4% in the week ending February 14. This time, however, that decline was accompanied by a decline in applications for refinancing, which dropped a full 8% for the period. The combined effect left applications down by 6.4% for the week, but with interest rates steady to perhaps slightly lower at the moment and the end of the month coming up, it’s likely that some fence-sitters will jump into the market again next week.
Unless the economic climate begins to worsen or the Fed begins to make rumblings about a growing potential for an interest rate cut, the best interest rates can do is hang about, with perhaps a slow fade at times of worry or individual reports of softer growth here or there. For the most part, the available data from here and elsewhere doesn’t suggest that a significant decline (or increase) can be expected anytime really soon, but with the dark cloud of uncertainty regarding the coronavirus hovering over the globe, there still a greater chance of lower than higher rates regardless of how strong the incoming available data might be.
For next week, we think that the week-ending fade for rates this week will likely pull the averaged offered rate for a conforming 30-year FRM down by a couple of basis points at most, possibly enough to eat up the four basis point increase tallied over the last two weeks. We’ll see what comes when Freddie Mac reports new data next Thursday morning.

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 Corne

S&P CORELOGIC CASE-SHILLER INDEX SHOWS GROWTH IN ANNUAL HOME PRICE GAINS TO END 2019
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 25, 2020 – S&P Dow Jones Indices 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 December 2019 show that home prices continue to increase at a modest rate… Read more

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

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San Mateo County (SMC): Sales Price to List Price Ratio Jumps

The sales price to list price ratio popped from 101.8% to 105%. That’s the highest it has been since May 2019.
Inventory of single-family, re-sale homes was down 22.5% compared to last year. That is the seventh month in a row inventory has been lower than the year before. As of March 5th, there were 330 homes for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2000 is 1,287.
The median sales price for single-family, re-sale homes was up, year-over-year, by 8.3%. The average price was up 19%.
The median sales price was up 9.5% compared to January. The average sales price was up 14.6%.
Home sales rose 27.2% from January. Home sales were down 2.8% year-over-year. There were 206 homes sold in San Mateo County last month. The average since 2003 is 398.
Days of Inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all homes for sale divided by how many homes have sold, fell twenty-one day to forty-five days.
It took thirty days to sell a home last month. That is down from forty-two in January. 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 17.4% year-over-year. It was up 12.5% from January. The average sales price rose 7.1% from January. Year-over-year, the average sales price gained 8.6%.
Condo sales fell 12% year-over-year. Condo sales were up 2.8% from January.
Inventory fell 24.4% year-over-year. It was up 29.7% compared to January.
As of March 5th, there were 96 condos for sale in San Mateo County. The average since January 2003 is 350.
Days of inventory jumped to thirty-seven from thirty-one.
It is taking thirty-seven days to sell a condo.

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

Februuary 2019 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.