by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Feb 8, 2023 | Homes & Housing Market, Los Gatos Real Estate
As of today, January 5, 2023, 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.
Los Gatos real estate market statistics
Here is some Los Gatos real estate market data that I pulled directly from the MLS today.
Not surprisingly, the months of inventory is higher than Jan 2022, but tied with 2021 and lower than 2018-2020. Importantly, it’s lower than December 2022. This figure is probably the best one to tell us about the market heat. A hot sellers’ market is 2 months or less and a balanced market is 3-4 months in our area (more like 5-6 in most of the U.S. is balanced).
What we have here generally is a warm seller’s market. That normally translates to some houses siting but not selling and others flying off the market with multiple offers and overbids.
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by Clair Handy, Mary Pope-Handy | Jan 16, 2023 | Homes & Housing Market, Los Gatos Real Estate, Monte Sereno Real Estate
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):
- There were NO sales in December.
- All sales data for the month of November is based on just 2 closings. That can skew the data pretty quickly!
- This city is currently in a seller’s market with low inventory, just 7 available homes at the end of December.
- Closed and pending sales are also shrinking as we enter the holiday season.
- As of today, Jan 16, 2023, there are 3 available homes for sale, 2 closed sales, 2 pending sales, and 1 contingent sale in Monte Sereno.
- One of the closed sales sold at 98% of list price and the other at 97% of list price.
- The average days on market was 37. One house sold in 10 days and the other took 63 to obtain a ratified contract.
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, 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 (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:
December 2022 brought NO closed sales of homes in Monte Sereno.
| Trends At a Glance |
Dec 2022 |
Previous Month |
Year-over-Year |
| Median Price |
$0 (-100.0%) |
$3,424,000 |
$5,100,000 (-100.0%) |
| Average Price |
$0 (-100.0%) |
$3,424,000 |
$5,447,160 (-100.0%) |
| No. of Sales |
0 (-100.0%) |
2 |
5 (-100.0%) |
| Pending |
5 (+66.7%) |
3 |
6 (-16.7%) |
| Active |
7 (-12.5%) |
8 |
2 (+250.0%) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
0.0% (-100.0%) |
93.3% |
103.7% (-100.0%) |
| Days on Market |
0 (-100.0%) |
48 |
10 (-100.0%) |
| Days of Inventory |
0 (-100.0%) |
116 |
12 (-100.0%) |
November 2022
| 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 | Jan 24, 2022 | Homes & Housing Market
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:
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Nov 8, 2020 | Homes & Housing Market, Los Gatos Real Estate
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).
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Oct 23, 2019 | Homes & Housing Market, Los Gatos Real Estate
There are many factors impacting the Los Gatos real estate market, including the price point and the elementary or high school district. This post is updated every month or two. Today we’ll look at the Los Gatos realty market by pricing tiers and high school district using the months of inventory as a data point. The months of inventory, or MOI, is the currently active (for sale, no contract or pending sale) homes for sale divided by the number of homes using the same criteria which have closed escrow in the last 30 days.
These numbers were run today using MLSListings.com and it’s possible that a few more homes will be recorded as closed sales or new homes added to the market after I ran these numbers. One other disclaimer: sometimes the number of closed sales is very low or is at 0. This can be for many reasons. In some cases, there are a few which are sale pending and simply haven’t closed recently. In other cases, the market might actually be empty in those tiers, indicating a possible lack of demand or inventory. That being said, what do the numbers say?
Los Gatos real estate months of inventory in 95030 and 95032 combined
The overall MOI for the town as a whole with 95030 and 95032 zip codes shows a mild seller’s market, with post-summer cooling likely in what is a typical seasonal pattern. It is a bit of a mixed market when looking at the town as a whole, but less so when viewed by high school district or price point. We’ll see when the month is over, but already in many parts of Santa Clara County, the real estate market is returning to seasonal patterns with some cool pockets and some which remain hotter.
And here’s the same chart with data from last February. You can see that in mid-winter the inventory was smaller and moving slightly slower.
Looking back farther, here’s the same info for last November – the overall absorption rate isn’t much different from right now, and inventory and sales are neck-and-neck. Almost exactly a year ago, the market doesn’t look too different.
And a reference from April, when the market was red hot:
The real estate market for homes with the Los Gatos – Saratoga Joint Union High School District only
Now let’s view just the homes which are in the Los Gatos – Saratoga Joint Union High School District (or homes “in the schools” as locals say).Houses for sale with Los Gatos schools tend to be more pricey than those in neighboring school districts. This isn’t just the schools, but is also a function of being closer to downtown Los Gatos. The lowest priced homes in this area are seldom listed for less than $1 million.
Once again, we’ll compare it against last February. While the overall market is moving faster today than in February, here we can see that for homes in the Los Gatos School District were moving more quickly in winter. While the number of sales hasn’t changed much, inventory has gone up in this sector.
From last November, again, not a ton different between then and now.
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