by Clair Handy, Mary Pope-Handy | Dec 9, 2022 | Homes & Housing Market, Monte Sereno Real Estate, Real Estate Market
The City of Monte Sereno is a popular community bordering Los Gatos, Saratoga, and the Santa Cruz mountains. It’s also quite small, with just about 3,500 residents, so tracking the real estate market trends for the area can be tricky.
The number of houses sold in any given month will always be extremely small and the data will jump around. Checking the Los Gatos market will also help, but the best pulse on the market will come from particular sales in particular neighborhoods.
Houses make up most of Monte Sereno – there are no commercial buildings, just a post office, city hall, and an elementary school. There are also extremely few residential properties that are not detached single family homes. We don’t track the condo or townhomes in this area as we do in other communities because there just wouldn’t be enough (if any) data for it!
First up for the market analysis is the Altos Research weekly profile for Monte Sereno (uses list prices, not sales). This is updated automatically, so feel free to check this article weekly to see what’s happening now with list prices.
Trends at a Glance from the RE Report:
By the end of November this small city had only 2 closed sales and 8 active listings – so take any swings in data with a grain of salt. The current chart shows clear and distinct cooling in Monte Sereno, although some swings in the data may be less dramatic than they seem. Why? One of October’s 4 sales was a luxury property valued over $10M. And with so few sales this chart can swing wildly due to one or two exceptional homes!
Inventory, pending, and closed sales dipped month-over-month, and activity is well below last year. The sales to list price ratio also tends to swing wildly with so few sales, but finally dipped below 100% on average for two consecutive months. Overall homes are taking much longer to sell, averaging over a month on market.
Again, with so few sales the data is often sqewed by one or two extraordinary sales. With high demand and extremely low inventory, Monte Sereno remains in a seller’s market with clear cooling.
| Trends At a Glance |
Nov 2022 |
Previous Month |
Year-over-Year |
| Median Price |
$3,424,000 (-14.9%) |
$4,025,000 |
$4,000,000 (-14.4%) |
| Average Price |
$3,424,000 (-37.7%) |
$5,497,500 |
$4,900,330 (-30.1%) |
| No. of Sales |
2 (-50.0%) |
4 |
3 (-33.3%) |
| Pending |
3 (-25.0%) |
4 |
8 (-62.5%) |
| Active |
8 (-11.1%) |
9 |
6 (+33.3%) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
93.3% (-4.3%) |
97.5% |
105.1% (-11.3%) |
| Days on Market |
48 (+171.4%) |
18 |
8 (+519.6%) |
| Days of Inventory |
116 (+71.9%) |
68 |
58 (+100.0%) |
MLS info pulled directly: the charts below all were pulled from MLS Listings.com
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by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Dec 8, 2022 | Homes & Housing Market, Los Gatos Real Estate, Real Estate Market
As of today, December 8, the Los Gatos real estate market in 95030 & 95032 is cooling down further – more inventory, fewer sales, longer days to sell. It’s almost a tale of two markets with some homes priced low and selling fast, sometimes with multiple offers and overbids, and other homes languishing on the market for many months.
Multi Year Statistics: Los Gatos real estate market
Here is some multiple year over year Los Gatos real estate market data that I pulled directly from the MLS today.
The bottom line is supply and demand. What is the ratio between listings and closed sales? This is an excellent visual cue to understand what’s going on right now. Early this year, there were more closed sales each month then there were active listings. Since May (and the rate hikes), the market flipped. Now there are more listings than sales. Often the listings that aren’t selling are overpriced. That’s true in every market.
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by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Nov 29, 2022 | Los Gatos Neighborhoods, East Los Gatos
A handful of streets on and off Blossom Hill Road make up the Winterbrook Rochin area. Residents there enjoy the highly acclaimed Los Gatos Union School District and a close proximity to Blossom Hill Elementary School, Blossom Hill Park, and much more. Many properties can boast a view of the coastal range, too.
Not every neighborhood in Los Gatos has a name, and I could not locate one for residential part of town, either, so I’m calling it the Winterbrook Rochin area as those streets bookend these homes.
Where is the Winterbrook Rochin area?
This pocket sits just a little east of Blossom Manor in east Los Gatos, separated from the Manor by Ross Creek, and it hits the eastern boundary of the Los Gatos Union School district for this part of town (a snippet of Los Gatos schools can be found in Almaden Valley off of Camden and Coleman in the farther side of the Campagna subdivision – that is the very far east boundary!).
The streets include Winterbrook Road, Stephanie Lane, Linda Avenue (south of Ross Creek), Costances Court, Rochin Terrace, Rochin Court, and part of Blossom Hill Road.
What are homes and streets like in the Winterbrook Rochin area?
This area has a lot of variety in home age, size, style and more. I pulled the data up in Realist, which provides MLS members info from the county records, for the following statistics.
Quick stats:
- There are 76 single family homes in this neighborhood.
- 49 of them are single story, the rest are 2 story homes.
- The most modest homes have 2 bedrooms and 1 or 2 bathrooms. The largest has 8 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms.
- The houses have living space square footage from 850 SF to 6828 SF. Most houses have between 2,000 and 3,000 SF. (Three homes are under 1,000 SF. The three largest have 3,951, 4,646, and 6828 SF.)
- Lot sizes range from 7823 to 65,213 SF
- The oldest house was built in 1925, and the newest in 2020. The two oldest homes are on Linda. The three youngest are tear downs that were built new.
- The newest subdivision is on Constaces Court. There are 7 houses there, 6 built in 2014 and 1 constructed in 2018.
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by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Nov 11, 2022 | Los Gatos History, East Los Gatos, Parks in Los Gatos
The Ramohs Pacific Railroad once ran through the foothills off of Blossom Hill Road in East Los Gatos. Today there are hiking trails in the Heintz Open Space Preserve (behind the Heritage Grove neighborhood put up by SummerHill Homes in about the year 2000).
Recommended reading on the Ramohs Pacific Railroad
If you enjoy Los Gatos history, you will love this in depth look at the Ramohs Pacific Railroad by Derek Whaley on his Santa Cruz Trains website:
RM Heintz Miniature Railroad on the Santa Cruz Trains site.
Related reading on Los Gatos history
Cheeky Los Gatos article from 1892 (on this website)
Los Gatos and the 1918-1920 Influenza Pandemic: Part 1 (this site)
Hooker Gulch in the Los Gatos Mountains (this site)
Ming Quong: a Los Gatos Monument (this site)
The Los Gatos History Project (NUMU)
by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Nov 9, 2022 | Events, Los Gatos Events
The annual Thanksgiving Interfaith Service is a longstanding holiday tradition here in Los Gatos, and this year it’s both in person and virtual.
Thanksgiving Interfaith Service in Los Gatos: key info
Date: Thursday, November 17, 2022
Time: 7 – 8 p.m.
In Person Location: Los Gatos United Methodist Church
111 Church Street – Los Gatos, Ca. 95030
Live stream link for the service.
Attendance is free.
A charity or worthy cause is always supported at these events. In the past they’ve included food and clothing drives as well as cash. This year’s recipient is Recovery Café – more on that below.
This lovely event is organized by the Los Gatos Interfaith Clergy Association. All are welcome!
Recovery Café
The worthy cause being supported this year is Recovery Café. There will be a message shared about the vital work that they do during the service. Donations can be given in person or online. Here’s the link to donate to them. It’s not too early to chip in!
“A healing community for those traumatized by addiction, homelessness, and mental health challenges.”
Learn more about Recovery Café in San Jose here.
Participating Congregations Include
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Congregation Shir Hadash
Jewish Silicon Valley
West Valley Muslim Association
The Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception (Catholic)
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Skyland Community Church UCC (United Church of Christ)
The Terraces of Los Gatos
Los Gatos United Methodist Church (Hosting)
The participating communities change a little from year to year. In the past, this also included Faith Lutheran Church (ELCA), The Baha’i Faith of Los Gatos, chaplains from Good Samaritan Hospital, and Stanford Health Care.
Many thanks to all of you: those on the committee, the volunteers at the houses of worship who make this possible each year, everyone who donates, and everyone who prays with a grateful heart this season and always.
I wish each and every one of you a very Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season!
Related reading
See other Los Gatos events (or nearby) written about on this site
