The Los Gatos real estate market in September was strong for single family homes, cool for condos and townhouses, and a cold market in the mountains. This is a repeat from July and August, more or less.
Per Altos Research (see below), the hottest segment of the market in Los Gatos is the 95032 area.
1 – Los Gatos real estate market statistics for the “in town” areas: multi year data
Here is some Los Gatos real estate market data that I pulled directly from the MLS. This is for the in town areas of 95032 and 95030.
Inventory of available homes for sale in Los Gatos 95030 and Los Gatos 95032
Click on any of the images below and a larger version will pop up in a new tab and be easier to read.
Inventory in September rose substantially but didn’t break any records.
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.
Info at a glance (details further below):
With so few sales and listings, Monte Sereno real estate data can swing quite wildly, so take it with a grain of salt.
This city appears to be in a seller’s market with low inventory – just 4 available homes at the end of August.
There were 3 closed and 1 pending sales by the end of last month.
The average sale to list price ratio for August (based on those 3 sales) was 101.8% of asking, rising well above the previous month’s 95.5%, but below June’s sky-scraping 111.9%, and down significantly from this time last year at 103.9%.
The lack of sales makes it difficult to track trends using averages and medians. It’s still useful data, especially if we piece it apart a bit. The MLS showed 4 closed sales in August, and from those:
Homes sold between $2,600,000 – $5,998,880. That low sale is one of the lowest we’ve seen in a long while, and it was sold off-market.
The 2 lower sales sold off-market (0 DOM) and the other 2 took 11 and 86 days on market to sell.
Of the 2 that sold on the open market, one sold at asking price and the other sold over asking at 105.5% of list. The higher sale had originally been listed at $7M back in April and had multiple price reductions before selling.
As of today, September 25, 2026, the MLS shows that there are 7 available Monte Sereno homes for sale (2 are Member’s Only: Show), 0 contingent sales, 2 pending sales, and 2 closed sales so far this month. Activity has been high in recent months for this small city, though lately it seems to be coming in waves!
The number of houses sold in any given month will always be extremely small making the data tend to jump around. Checking the Los Gatos market will also help, but the best pulse on the market will come from identifying particular sales in particular neighborhoods to track relevant micro markets.
Houses make up most of Monte Sereno – there are no commercial buildings, just city hall, some churches or religious grounds, 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 (and more often not 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 listed homes.
The number of home sales is very small in Monte Sereno. Even when there are sales, one or two outstanding properties could cause major waves in the data, so take this summary with a grain of salt.
August: 3 Sales
Trends At a Glance
Aug 2026
Previous Month
Year-over-Year
Median Price
$4,000,000 (-2.4%)
$4,100,000
$4,668,000 (-14.3%)
Average Price
$4,566,290 (+13.6%)
$4,018,670
$4,839,330 (-5.6%)
No. of Sales
3 (-50.0%)
6
3 (0.0%)
Pending
1 (0.0%)
1
2 (-50.0%)
Active
4 (+100.0%)
2
6 (-33.3%)
Sale vs. List Price
101.8% (+6.7%)
95.5%
103.9% (-1.9%)
Days on Market
4 (-90.7%)
43
10 (-60.0%)
Days of Inventory
40 (+300.0%)
10
60 (-33.3%)
While the lack of sales and listings can make the data in these charts swing wildly, the overall trend in recent months has shown an active market in this high-end community, though it seemed to be having some up and down in recent months following an earlier spring peak. For the right homes, however, it’s still blazing hot! With so few sales it’s crucial to track the neighboring Los Gatos market as well, to gain additional insight.
What does it cost to live in Monte Sereno? With an average sale price of roughly $4 – $5 million, you may wonder if anything sells that’s not in the stratosphere – can you buy an entry-level Silicon Valley home in Monte Sereno? The short answer is this: it’s extremely unlikely you will find anything for under $3 million in Monte Sereno. Even a “fixer” often goes well above that. It can happen, although it’s rare, and the home will certainly be priced that way for a reason.
We also keep track of this market over at the Valley of Heart’s Delight blog, in addition to many other communities around Silicon Valley.
Other pricing consideration: what about schools?
Something else to be aware of is that most Monte Sereno houses are in the Los Gatos Union School District, but a small pocket of properties lies within the Campbell School District. Those with Campbell schools usually sell for a little less. Additionally, most of this city is within the 95030 zip code, but again, there’s a small pocket which is in the 95032 area.
Next, what kind of home is available to purchase in Monte Sereno now?
The biggest home seller mistakes tend be the most common ones. The majority of seller mistakes often boils down to not hiring a good real estate agent and simply following her or his guidance.
Biggest home seller mistakes: summary
Here are the top four “biggest home seller mistakes” in my experience. In most cases, a good listing agent will try to avoid these, but sometimes sellers pressure their real estate agent do do it the seller’s way, cutting these essential corners or ignoring the realities of the current real estate market.
Overpricing the property for sale, misunderstanding what their home is worth.
Not studying the market stats and believing that the data applies to their home.
Going on the market unprepared:
Not making the home “show ready”, nicely staged, clean, bright, and professionally photographed.
Not making the disclosure package complete and ready with all pre-sale inspections and disclosures completed.
Lack of MLS exposure and lack of listing syndication.
Overly restrictive showings, sellers being present during showings, any other hurdles to buyer’s agents showing the home to their clients.
Related to #1 and #2 above, a common mistake among sellers is pressuring the listing agent to tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. Hire a good real estate agent, ask for that professional’s guidance and act on it.
Errors with over pricing
What tops the list for the biggest home seller mistakes? High pricing! All the marketing in the world cannot compensate for a price that is too high. A low price may cause problems, too, but most of the time it will generate multiple offers, overbids, and a great sale price. In most markets, it’s riskier to overprice than to under price.
When homes don’t sell within 3-4 weeks in Santa Clara County, the vast majority of the time it is due to the list price being too high for what buyers are willing or able to pay for it. (more…)
What is the pricing difference between homes with the Los Gatos Union School District and those with either Union Elementary School District or the Campbell union Elementary School District? It is not huge, but it is noticeable.
For this study I wanted to compare similar sized homes and lots in various parts of Los Gatos 95030 and 95032. Extremely narrow parameters resulted in too small of a group, and I ended up using 2000 – 3000 SF houses on lots of 9,000 – 11,000 SF. There were 27 such single family homes sold in 2021, so not a large group. It is spread throughout the year since when I attempted to narrow it just to one quarter there were not enough homes.
Additionally, I wanted to look at three specific neighborhoods to check the pricing difference between them and their respective school districts as a whole. For this I selected the Old Adobe Road area in West Los Gatos, Blossom Manor with the Los Gatos Union School District, and the Belwood-Belgatos-Surmont area with the Union School District in East Los Gatos.
Here are the results of the 2021 pricing differences study (please note that homes may cost considerably more today as values are up quite a lot from last year):
Homes with Los Gatos Schools are the most expensive, followed by the homes in West LG, and then just a hair behind them are houses in East LG.
In the highest demand, as measured by the sale price to list price ratio, were the homes in Blossom Manor. That’s easy to understand because it’s a close to everything location, including Blossom Hill Elementary, Blossom Hill Park, and loads of shops, stores, coffee houses, and restaurants.
Next highest in demand for neighborhoods is the Belwood, Belgatos, and Surmont area, which offers the biggest bang for your buck in town.
What is the pricing difference for homes in these 3 school districts?
Pricing difference on a hypothetical 2300 SF house
If we use a mythical 2300 SF house, here’s how the dollars would shake out:
Los Gatos condo sales are good to watch as it provides info on the most affordable segment of the local real estate market. The condo / townhome market in Los Gatos includes a broad spectrum of housing and affordability across the 95030 and 95032 zip codes and its various school districts.
Included are senior condominiums (mostly but not exclusively at the Los Gatos Commons), which are usually the lowest priced homes and which are residences with age restrictions (mostly 55+). This can skew the data a little, so remember that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is (for all the non-seniors who would love the prices at the Commons in a non seniors complex).
Also incorporated in the chart below are townhouses. A townhouse is an architectural style, not a type of ownership. A townhouse really refers to properties with no other units above or below them. They are either in condo style ownership (essentially a condominium in the shape of a townhouse) or they are planned unit developments (PUDs), which are not condos and in which the ownership includes the land under the unit. (See also: Is that Los Gatos house or townhouse actually a condo? on this blog.)
Chart of Los Gatos condo sales in 2020
Below please find data on the Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 condominium and townhome sales.
How do these condo and townhome prices compare to other nearby areas? Here’s the most recent data from my RE Report (link is to the main site, the PDF with this chart is listed in left column).
The Los Gatos real estate market in September was strong for single family homes, cool for condos and townhouses, and a cold market in the mountains. This is a repeat from July and August, more or less.
