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October 07, 2008

The Los Gatos real estate market for single family homes is a bit of a mixed bag, with some indicators more positive than others, but on the whole, it’s a deepening buyers market.

Below, please see the basic sales data on the closed single family homes in Los Gatos for September 2008. Note that saes are up, but days on market are longer, prices are mostly down (except the year over year average sp), and the list price to sales price ratio is dropping.

Trends At a Glance Sep 2008 Previous Month Year-over Year
Median Price $1,205,000 $1,389,980 (-13.3%) $1,280,000 (-5.9%)
Average Price $1,609,960 $1,669,850 (-3.6%) $1,346,230 (+19.6%)
No. of Sales 27 22 (+22.7%) 17 (+58.8%)
Active 170 138 (+23.2%) 106 (+60.4%)
Sale vs. List Price 94.9% 96.5% (-1.7%) 97.6% (-2.8%)
Days on Market 71 51 (+39.0%) 44 (+61.3%)

A good way to judge the market overall is by crunching the numbers to get the months of inventory (or days, or weeks of inventory), also known as the absorption rate. Next, please view the Los Gatos area (including Monte Sereno and some parts of Cambrian Park and possibly Campbell) known as “area 16” in our MLS.  This lines up almost exactly with Los Gatos and the zip codes 95032 and 95030:

Los Gatos single family homes absorption rates January to Sept 2008 (Silicon Valley real estate)

As you can well see, it is going to take more and more time to sell off the current inventory of single family homes in the Los Gatos area. In fact, it is a strong trend that the buyers market has been deepening. The National Association of Realtors says that 6 months or less is a sellers market, but more than 6 months is a buyers market. We had a little dip in May through July where the sellers were under that threshold, but for the most part, it has not been much of a year for sellers in Los Gatos.

In most times, it’s very challenging for buyers to purchase a home in Los Gatos as there are often multiple offers and high demands from the sellers. Buyers, now is your chance to get in at a reasonable time!  Sellers, if you want to sell, make your home gorgous and price it competitively!

To learn more, please visit my Real Estate Report online, an interactive monthly report that provides information for all of Santa Clara County, including Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Almaden Valley, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, etc., and separated by single family homes and condominiums and townhomes.

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