Real Estate Market
The Monte Sereno real estate market
Ranch style home on Elm Park in Monte Sereno, sold by Mary Pope-Handy
The City of Monte Sereno is quite small, with just about 4,000 residents, so the number of houses sold in any given month will always be extremely small.
For that reason, the data may appear to jump around wildly compared to Los Gatos or Saratoga, which each have about 30,000 people living there. Please take all the stats with a tablespoon of salt, and be sure to view the Los Gatos housing market data to get a more accurate picture of what’s happening with Monte Sereno homes (just add a little to the price tag as homes there tend to sell for a bit more than LG properties).
Also, there are only single family, detached houses in Monte Sereno: no apartments, multi unit housing (2 – 4 plex), no duet homes (attached single family homes). That will be changing soon, however, as the old La Hacienda property (formerly an estate, then a hotel and restaurant) at Hwy 9 and Austin Way will become incorporated into Monte Sereno and condos or townhomes built there.
Altos Research weekly profile for Monte Sereno (uses list prices):
Trends at a Glance from the RE Report:
Just 3 sales in September, so not a statistically useful pool of data, but a fairly typical number of sale. The sale to list price ratio fell from last month, and is down from a year ago. Days on market are growing far longer – signs of a cooling market. Last month, to dig a little deeper, I pulled up the 5 sales in August and saw that 2 of them sold for more than list price and 3 under. One of the listings sold just $5,000 over (31 days on market), and the other one – an “off market sale” (0 days on market) was about $100,000 over. For the three homes that sold under list price, the average days on market was about 2 months and the average underbid around $100,000. One of them was on just 17 days and sold within $20,000 of list price. The speed of the sale seems to correlate with the sale to list price ratio.
| Trends At a Glance | Sep 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $4,143,750 (+38.1%) | $3,000,000 | $3,650,000 (+13.5%) |
| Average Price | $3,684,580 (+37.8%) | $2,673,000 | $3,655,000 (+0.8%) |
| No. of Sales | 3 (-40.0%) | 5 | 5 (-40.0%) |
| Pending | 6 (+20.0%) | 5 | 2 (+200.0%) |
| Active | 13 (+8.3%) | 12 | 6 (+116.7%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 97.9% (-0.7%) | 98.6% | 101.3% (-3.4%) |
| Days on Market | 52 (+7.4%) | 48 | 20 (+165.3%) |
| Days of Inventory | 126 (+74.5%) | 72 | 35 (+261.1%) |
And for the month before:
| Trends At a Glance | Aug 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $3,000,000 (-14.3%) | $3,500,000 | $2,467,810 (+21.6%) |
| Average Price | $2,673,000 (-22.3%) | $3,441,670 | $2,944,770 (-9.2%) |
| No. of Sales | 5 (+66.7%) | 3 | 6 (-16.7%) |
| Pending | 5 (0.0%) | 5 | 5 (0.0%) |
| Active | 12 (0.0%) | 12 | 4 (+200.0%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 98.6% (-4.8%) | 103.5% | 96.7% (+1.9%) |
| Days on Market | 48 (+215.7%) | 15 | 21 (+134.2%) |
| Days of Inventory | 72 (-40.0%) | 120 | 20 (+260.0%) |
Los Gatos real estate statistics and market trends
The Los Gatos real estate market for single family homes has been slowly cooling down a little – as a whole. Part of it is the luxury tier, which moves slower than entry or mid level priced properties. When the luxury price strata swells, it can skew the numbers to look like everything is cooling down, when that may not be the case.
Months of inventory in Los Gatos: a quick look
Just now I went to the MLS and pulled the number of active single family homes in Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 (72) and the number of sold and closed in the last 30 days (19) to check on the overall absorption rate or months of inventory. If we divide the active listings by the closed listings in the last 30 days, we get the months of inventory – so 72 / 19 = 3.79 months of inventory for the whole of MLS area 16 in Los Gatos. For our area, that is pretty close to balanced (4 months or so), but just a bit in the seller’s favor. In other parts of the US, balance is at around 6 months.
If we shift to viewing just houses and duet homes offered up to $2 million, it’s a very different view of the market. In this case, there are 17 active listings and 11 sold in the last 30 days, so just 1.55 months of inventory. This is the entry level price point for Los Gatos 95030 and 95032. It’s a little lower for the Los Gatos Mountains.
(I have a separate post on the Los Gatos months of inventory that I’ll update soon, breaking it down by price point and high school district to better pinpoint the individual markets within LG.)
What is selling best in LG right now?
Of the 19 closed sales in the last 30 days, 11 were under $2 million (about 58%), 5 were between $2 and $3 million, 2 between $3 and $3.6 mil, and 1 at over $6 mil. The high end price point tends to be at around $3,000,000 and up for this part of Santa Clara County.
For the houses under $3 mil, the average days on market was 40, the average list price was $1,958,866 and the average sale price just a little more at $1,971,431. For those transactions, the average living space square footage was 2,197 sf and average lot size 11,948 SF.
Los Gatos Trends at a Glance for 95030 & 95032
Next, data from the RE Report for Los Gatos (“in town”), in the Los Gatos Mountains, and for Los Gatos condos (only in town, none in the mountain communities). Below that will be live Altos Research charts, updated automatically each week. Altos uses list prices, not sold prices, fyi.
The real estate numbers below reflect realty data gathered the first week of the month for the past month in Los Gatos 95030 & 95032 (all areas / school districts), or MLS “area 16”. See the full REReport here. Prices are up both year over year and month over month, and the sale to list price popped back up – all positive – while days on market rise (a bit of a negative).
Trends at a Glance
| Trends At a Glance | Sep 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $2,310,000 (+12.9%) | $2,045,500 | $2,000,000 (+15.5%) |
| Average Price | $2,636,620 (+9.3%) | $2,412,780 | $2,417,500 (+9.1%) |
| No. of Sales | 25 (-3.8%) | 26 | 25 (0.0%) |
| Pending | 36 (+12.5%) | 32 | 42 (-14.3%) |
| Active | 70 (-4.1%) | 73 | 62 (+12.9%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 100.0% (+1.3%) | 98.7% | 101.0% (-1.0%) |
| Days on Market | 48 (+39.2%) | 35 | 25 (+96.1%) |
| Days of Inventory | 81 (-3.6%) | 84 | 72 (+12.9%) |
And the month before:
| Trends At a Glance | Aug 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $2,045,500 (-12.3%) | $2,332,290 | $2,230,000 (-8.3%) |
| Average Price | $2,412,780 (-3.1%) | $2,489,320 | $2,699,150 (-10.6%) |
| No. of Sales | 26 (-27.8%) | 36 | 27 (-3.7%) |
| Pending | 32 (+6.7%) | 30 | 38 (-15.8%) |
| Active | 73 (-3.9%) | 76 | 61 (+19.7%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 98.7% (-1.5%) | 100.2% | 101.1% (-2.3%) |
| Days on Market | 35 (+4.4%) | 33 | 35 (-1.3%) |
| Days of Inventory | 84 (+33.0%) | 63 | 68 (+24.3%) |
Trends at a Glance for the Los Gatos Mountains
The RE Report has some info on the Los Gatos Mountains, but I do not believe it covers all of what we would have as 95033 or MLS “area 23”. You can see the mountains info market here:
Just 8 closed sales in the mountains in September, so I would not trust the general numbers that much. Better would be checking sales in your particular part of the mountains, such as Upper Redwood Estates, Chemeketa Park, etc., to see what the market is doing.
| Trends At a Glance | Sep 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $822,500 (-34.2%) | $1,250,000 | $1,075,780 (-23.5%) |
| Average Price | $787,062 (-36.2%) | $1,233,210 | $1,547,820 (-49.2%) |
| No. of Sales | 8 (+14.3%) | 7 | 10 (-20.0%) |
| Pending | 12 (+9.1%) | 11 | 20 (-40.0%) |
| Active | 45 (+4.7%) | 43 | 57 (-21.1%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 94.9% (-3.1%) | 97.9% | 99.2% (-4.4%) |
| Days on Market | 67 (+66.3%) | 40 | 44 (+52.1%) |
| Days of Inventory | 163 (-11.5%) | 184 | 165 (-1.3%) |
And the month before:
| Trends At a Glance | Aug 2019 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $1,250,000 (+29.5%) | $965,000 | $997,500 (+25.3%) |
| Average Price | $1,233,210 (+35.0%) | $913,438 | $955,125 (+29.1%) |
| No. of Sales | 7 (-12.5%) | 8 | 10 (-30.0%) |
| Pending | 11 (+22.2%) | 9 | 12 (-8.3%) |
| Active | 43 (-4.4%) | 45 | 44 (-2.3%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 97.9% (+0.9%) | 97.0% | 106.2% (-7.8%) |
| Days on Market | 40 (-1.8%) | 41 | 29 (+36.5%) |
| Days of Inventory | 184 (+9.2%) | 169 | 132 (+39.6%) |
Average & median sale prices in Los Gatos
My RE Report stats come out between the 5th and the 10th of each month, but I like to get a sneak peak, so crunch my own numbers some of the time. Today I wanted a window into Los Gatos real estate pricing. First, here are the average and median sale prices for the Los Gatos market in the two “in town” zip codes of 95030 and 95032 (for single family homes):
Next, the Los Gatos Mountains (MLS area 23, zip code 95033):
Additional market info to follow in just a few days!
Comparing the Los Gatos real estate market to others
Silicon Valley real estate market comparison: Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino and Los Altos on the Valley of Heart’s Delight blog, SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com
Today we’re looking at the real estate market for houses in some of the “west valley” communities along the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains – areas where schools are good, crime is low, residents enjoy scenic views of the hills (or of the valley from the hills, depending on the location) and overall, a highly educated population not too far from Highway 85.
Please hop on over to my Valley of Heart’s Delight blog to check out how the Los Gatos market is doing as compared to Saratoga, Cupertino, and Los Altos.
Los Gatos real estate market trends by price point and high school district
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 slightly weakening market, 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. February is often a time when markets heat up considerably. 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 very hot pockets.
Same info for last November – the overall absorption rate isn’t much different now, but there are a lot few sales happening.
From mid-late June:
And 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.
From last November, again, not a ton different between then and now:
Pricing difference for Los Gatos homes “with the schools” versus Union or Campbell schools
Recently I have noticed a couple of very high sales prices for properties in east Los Gatos with Union Schools, especially Alta Vista, Carlton, and Noddin schools. It should be noted that ALL of the elementary and middle schools throughout Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and the Los Gatos Mountains are very strong and can boast excellent school test scores, notably good parental involvement, and pleasant campuses. Even so, homes closest to downtown Los Gatos and with the Los Gatos Union School District have always sold for a noticeable amount more than those outside of that area. Often the delta is 10-20%, but it can very a lot. On a couple of occasions recently, though, it seemed like at least some homes selling in the Union or Campbell schools are were gleaning prices more typically seen closer to downtown.
So I started to wonder – Is the gap between the two major areas (in the schools / not in the schools) shrinking? Let’s see by running the numbers in the MLS for one or two segments of the market.
Multiple Listing Service study criteria:
The search I created was for houses in Los Gatos (not Monte Sereno or San Jose on the border), zip codes 95030, 95032 (sorry, Los Gatos Mountains not included in this study); home age 20-60 years, lot size 6,000 to 10,000 SF. These are “normal homes” and not luxury or estate properties, of course.
Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 with Los Gatos Union School District
# of Listings: 9 AVG VALUES: age: 34 years days on market: 28 size of home: 1,798 SF size of lot: 6,342 price per SF: $901.94
average list price: $1,472,872 average sale price: $1,480,000
Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 with Union School District or Campbell Union School District
# of Listings: 15 AVG VALUES: age: 49 years days on market: 22 size of home: 1,912 SF size of lot: 8,416 SF price per SF: $712.23
average list price: $1,245,033 average sale price: $1,297,700
As you can see, it’s not really wise to use just “price per square foot” to compare these areas, because the age of the property and the lot size are significantly different. I approached it also by trying to target just the sale price at about $1.5 million, but the data was so limited that I could not exclude newer homes or smaller parcels. So let’s see what you can get in these two areas for that amount, or close to it. Continue reading
Los Gatos real estate market months of inventory by price point and high school district
December 17, 2013
Sorting out the local Los Gatos real estate market can be a bit tricky, but one of the best instruments for measuring performance is the months of inventory (MOI, or absorption rate). In this article we’ll consider the MOI houses in Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 by high school district and price point, since I believe those are the two main drivers of our residential real estate market.
Also, this time I’m adding in the pending sales as an indicator of where the market is going, too – just to cover the bases! Finally, since I did a similar study the first week in November, but without the pendings, I’ll keep those below the current tables for the sake of comparison. Overall, right now we have a brisk 2 months of inventory for houses in Los Gatos. But homes in the lowest price point are selling far faster – at about 10 days of inventory!! The MOI increases very clearly with higher price points, where it becomes increasingly challenging to sell.
About six weeks earlier, it looked like this chart below -the MOI is now a lot faster (4.19 then to 2.04 now) as inventory has shrunk by about a third and sales have increased (21 to 28 now). Perhaps most striking is the change in the luxury or high end market over the last six weeks. It seems far harder to sell a luxury home now as opposed to then.
Next up – homes “in the schools” with Los Gatos High School, then those in the Leigh HS and Westmont HS attendance areas. How will these numbers stack up compared to the town as a whole?
Please read the full article on my Valley of Hearts Delight blog
How’s The Los Gatos Real Estate Market Doing Now?
March 06, 2013
The market is heating up in Los Gatos as of about 4 weeks ago with new sales commenced. These will not be reflected in the closed sales until early March, so please take the ‘solds’ info below with a grain of salt and keep the changed market conditions in mind!
Below please find the statistics and numbers for house sales in the town of Los Gatos (95030 and 95032), including county pockets, which closed in the month of February 2013. The median price is down both month over month and also year over year. It has been softer in Los Gatos than in many Silicon Valley communities right now.
| Trends At a Glance | Feb 2013 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $1,435,000 | $1,555,000 (-7.7%) | $1,442,500 (-0.5%) |
| Average Price | $1,506,570 | $1,704,850 (-11.6%) | $2,320,030 (-35.1%) |
| No. of Sales | 19 | 13 (+46.2%) | 16 (+18.8%) |
| Pending Properties | 36 | 18 (+100.0%) | 48 (-25.0%) |
| Foreclosures Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 1 (-100.0%) |
| Short Sales Sold | 2 | 0 (N/A) | 1 (+100.0%) |
| Active Listings | 60 | 52 (+15.4%) | 86 (-30.2%) |
| Active Foreclosures | 1 | 0 (N/A) | 2 (-50.0%) |
| Active Short Sales | 1 | 0 (N/A) | 10 (-90.0%) |
| Sales Price vs. List Price | 97.4% | 99.4% (-2.0%) | 94.8% (+2.7%) |
| Days on Market | 88 | 34 (+160.7%) | 70 (+25.3%) |
Inventory is low all over – and Los Gatos is no exception, though inventory did go up a bit countywide from January 2013 to Feb 2013. How bad is it? Off 30% from a year ago (and inventory was low then: Feb 2012 was 86, Feb 2011 was 132 available houses).
Days on market: The figure for February of 88 days on market for sold properties reflects the DOM of houses that closed in February and most likely went into contract in January, or possibly December – both of which were “cooler” times than the shift we saw take place in early February 2013.
How long have the currently available single family homes in LG been on the market?
As of this moment, in 95030 and 95032 combined there are just 76 single family homes for sale. Most haven’t been on all that long, in fact, appx 64% or 2/3 have been on the market for 60 days or less, and exactly half of the available inventory has been on the market for 1 month or less. Let’s see the breakdown in one-month increments of the number of homes in each time bracket.:
0 – 30 days: 38 homes
31 – 60 days: 11
61 – 90 days: 4
91 – 120 days: 4
121 – 150 days: 2
151-180 days: 9
181-210 days: 1
211-240 days: 1
241-270 days: 0
271-300 days: 1
301-330 days: 1
331-365 days: 1
366 + days: 3 (oldest one almost 1500 DOM)
How long were the under contract single family homes in LG on the market?
I won’t repeat this level of detail for the Los Gatos houses which are sale pending or under contract (real estate agents: status 3 & 4), but the average days on market for those 17 pending properties is 26 and of these, only 2 were more than 30 days (1 sold with 49 DOM and another 191 DOM). In other words, when homes sell now, they are selling faster than the DOM from the closed sales in February would reveal. This will show up in March’s statistics next month.
Are there multiple offers in Los Gatos, and overbids?
Yes, there are some of each. I did a spot check of the sales for the last 7 days and the last 14 days and in both cases, the average sales price was higher than the average list price. For the last 7 days, there were 8 closed sales, 4 above list, 1 at list price and 3 below.)
Los Gatos condominium & townhouse sales (click on link for more info)
Dramatic improvement in the median and average sales price of condos and townhomes in town year over year as well as from the prior month.
| Trends At a Glance | Feb 2013 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $787,500 | $649,000 (+21.3%) | $601,000 (+31.0%) |
| Average Price | $708,900 | $659,286 (+7.5%) | $562,675 (+26.0%) |
| No. of Sales | 10 | 7 (+42.9%) | 8 (+25.0%) |
| Pending Properties | 9 | 11 (-18.2%) | 19 (-52.6%) |
| Foreclosures Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A)< /span> | 2 (-100.0%) |
| Short Sales Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 1 (-100.0%) |
| Active Listings | 9 | 6 (+50.0%) | 24 (-62.5%) |
| Active Foreclosures | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 0 (N/A) |
| Active Short Sales | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 3 (-100.0%) |
| Sales Price vs. List Price | 100.9% | 102.1% (-1.2%) | 96.1% (+5.0%) |
| Days on Market | 10 | 18 (-43.9%) | 63 (-83.9%) |
The Monte Sereno real estate market
Monte Sereno houses (no condos in MS) – primarily 95030 but a smattering of 95032 also. There are so few homes in Monte Sereno (just 4,000 residents) that the sales numbers are very easily skewed. Disclaimers aside, here are the Monte Sereno market stats:
| Trends At a Glance | Feb 2013 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $1,600,000 | $1,813,000 (-11.7%) | $0 (N/A) |
| Average Price | $1,600,000 | $2,032,670 (-21.3%) | $0 (N/A) |
| No. of Sales | 1 | 3 (-66.7%) | 0 (N/A) |
| Pending Properties | 7 | 2 (+250.0%) | 0 (N/A) |
| Foreclosures Sold | 0 | 1 (-100.0%) | 0 (N/A) |
| Short Sales Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 0 (N/A) |
| Active Listings | 9 | 6 (+50.0%) | 0 (N/A) |
| Active Foreclosures | 0 | 0 (N/A) | (N/A) |
| Active Short Sales | 0 | 0 (N/A) | (N/A) |
| Sales Price vs. List Price | 94.2% | 112.0% (-15.9%) | 0.0% (N/A) |
| Days on Market | 15 | 42 (-64.3%) | 0 (N/A) |
The Los Gatos Mountains real estate market trends and statistics – 95033 – houses, no condos or townhouses only – NO HOMES SOLD/CLOSED in Feb 2013, so no charts to share!
A more affordable, but beautiful, place to live is in the coastal foothills over the town of Los Gatos. The communities there are closely affiliated with the town of Los Gatos, if distinct! This area is always tougher to sell, and slower to appreciate. Prices here aren’t much better, and possibly worse off (depending on the area, price point etc.), than a year ago.
Altos Live Charts for Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 plus Los Gatos Mountains 95033 and Monte Sereno Real Estate
Next please enjoy the live Altos charts, which are updated automatically each week – each segment is a little different than the others (and the reports would be more diverse still if we broke these down further, by price quartile – – sign up below if you want these delivered to you via email each week).
As you can see, pricing is stronger in 95030 than in 95032. This may be due to the schools (only a little of 95030 is in the Campbell Union High School District, but a larger portion of 95032 is). The strong Los Gatos schools are a major driver of desireability – but not the only one. Many people want to have the “walk to town” element, even if their kids are in private schools.
What Is Selling in Los Gatos Now?
July 26, 2010
As of today, there are 163 single family homes (houses & duet homes) for sale in Los Gatos 95030 and 95032. In the last month, 29 homes in that same area closed escrow. So the months of inventory for Los Gatos houses for sale is 5.62, very close to the benchmark of a balanced market, which is 6 months. (There are also 48 sales which are pending without a release clause, but not all of these will close escrow.)
Here are some quick facts regarding the 29 homes which have closed escrow in the last month.
List price to sales price ratio
- the average list price to sales price is 98% (most homes sold for less than asking price)
- 14 out of 29 sold for less than list price (48%)
- 3 sold right at list price (10%)
- 12 sold for more than list price (41%)
Distressed sales (short sales and bank owned homes)
- 3 of the 29 were short sales (10%)
- 1 of the 29 was bank owned or REO (3%)
- distressed sales (3 +1) accounted for 14% of the solds
Days on market, home size and lot size
- the average Days on Market of these solds was 48
- the average length of escrow was 46 days
- the average square footage of the homes was 2552
- the average square footage f the lot was 15,788
Average list price and average sales price, median list & sales price, highest and lowest price of homes bought
- the average list price was $1,460,754
- the average sales price was $1,437,434
- the median list price was $1,308,000 & median sales price $1,275,000
- the least expensive home sold went for $800,000 (a 1 bed, 1 bath cottage)
- the most expensive home sold for $3,550,000
Price Points of sold homes in Los Gatos
Most of the homes sold between 1 and 2 million dollars. Here’s the breakdown by price points:
Over $3 mil = 1 home
Between $2 mil and $ 3 mil = 2 homes
Between $1 mil and $2 mil = 21 homes
Under $1 million = 5 homes
How fast are homes selling in Los Gatos?
The DOM was 48 as an average, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. While some homes sold only after many months, a number of them sold fast:
Within 1 week = 6 (21%)
Between 1 and 2 weeks = 4 (14%)
Between 2 and 3 weeks = 5 (17%)
Between 3 and 4 weeks = 2 (7%)
All DOM at or under a month = 17 = 59% of the sales. So the odds are very good that if your home is priced right, it will sell in the first 1-3 weeks on the market. The most sales of these “sold quickly” homes happened in the very first week.
What about all the homes that have not sold? What can the owners learn from this? First, your best chance of selling is early on in the listing period. If you get to the one month mark, the chances begin diminishing that you can sell without a price change. Do everything you can to make your home turnkey and super accessible that very first week or two especially!
What is key to sales success is generating a good amount of qualified traffic, again especially early in the game. In Los Gatos, having open houses and having the home open for the broker’s tour are both important (at least initially – less so after 2 or 3 weeks on the market). If you are not getting at least 3 to 5 showings per week, you may have a problem. (Disclaimer: this is “in general” and may not apply to luxury estates and certain other properties.) Having overly restrictive showing schedules makes it hard to show and hard to sell.
For homes priced below $2,000,000 it is really not a bad market right now for sellers or buyers – it is pretty balanced overall. In some areas there’s more competition then sellers would prefer, but in general these homes are moving when priced right, nicely staged and well marketed.
Los Gatos Real Estate Market 95030 and 95032 Update June 2010
June 06, 2010
The Los Gatos real estate market varies between the price points, areas, school districts and zip codes (and, where present, sale type – regular sale vs short sale or bank owned home). Today we’ll update the market info for the homes for sale in Los Gatos (houses and duet homes, not the condo or townhome market).
First, here’s some data from my RE Report subscription for May sales in Los Gatos. (You can see the whole online report here.) To get the months of inventory or absorption rate, simply divide the active listings by the solds in the month – so 156/29 = 5.37 months of inventory for Los Gatos. It is just slightly inside the definition for being a seller’s market (6 months is balanced, less is a seller’s market and more is a buyer’s market). It is close to a balanced market in Los Gatos overall.
| Trends At a Glance | May 2010 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $1,231,150 | $1,275,000 (-3.4%) | $1,012,000 (+21.7%) |
| Average Price | $1,416,700 | $1,333,370 (+6.2%) | $1,111,280 (+27.5%) |
| No. of Sales | 29 | 29 (0.0%) | 20 (+45.0%) |
| Pending Properties | 62 | 60 (+3.3%) | 37 (+67.6%) |
| Active | 156 | 130 (+20.0%) | 160 (-2.5%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 97.5% | 96.6% (+0.9%) | 95.6% (+2.1%) |
| Days on Market | 46 | 70 (-35.0%) | 55 (-16.6%) |
Next, we’ll break it down a little: a look at the Los Gatos real estate market this week by zip code and price quartile for houses (and duet homes) – not condos or townhomes. Data from Altos Research, to which I have a subscription. (You can get a weekly report for Los Gatos by zip code sent to you automatically….just email me and ask and I’ll set you up to receive it on auto-pilot.)
Let’s start with the numbers for the Los Gatos 95030 zip code area by price quartile. Median price here refers to the median LIST price, not sold price. The quartiles each reference 25% of the market. The first quartile is the most expensive segment and the 4th is the least. What I find really helpful with this view is what size of home your money can buy and on what lot size.
Please remember that these numbers mostly reflect listings, not sales. If you just look at the days on market, it appears that the 95030 market is much better than the 95032 market. But that is not really true. More than half of Los Gatos is in the 95030 area but note the number of homes absorbed – just 3! In the same time, though, for 95032 there were 19 homes absorbed. So while the DOM is longer in 95032, homes are actually selling better in that part of town than in 95030! (My hunch is that it’s because of two things: first, homes in 95032 tend to be more affordable and second, there are more short sales available in 95032 so they are getting scooped up at a faster rate than regular sales.)
Let’s next look at pricing trends by Los Gatos zip code next. First is the 95030 zip code area of Los Gatos with the median list prices for the last year. Hurt the most is the luxury market.
Same info but for the 95032 part of town – the median list price of houses for sale in Los Gatos, CA 95032:
Lastly, a look at the trend for “days on market” (DOM) of homes for sale in Los Gatos over the last year. Has it gotten harder or easier to sell in the last 12 months in 95030 and 95032?
For this part of Los Gatos, which tends to be the most expensive part of town, the DOM was rising until about March for all price points, then suddenly began to fall. A market reversal?
In the 95032 part of town, here’s how the DOM looks over the last year:
Interestingly, the days on market for 95032 has seemed to be a lot less volatile with one exception: the most expensive homes in the 95032 zip code. As a group, the DOM for 95032 is longer now than a year ago, which is also true for the 95030 part of town. the recent movement has been downward, though, and this also changed starting at about March 1st for most parts of town.
Overall, it is close to a balanced market in Los Gatos. Depending on the price point, zip code, school district and more, it could be a “hot seller’s market” or a “cold buyer’s market”. If you are buying or selling a home in Los Gatos, it is very important to drill down to the micro-market that applies to your home to understand how to price your home to sell or how to structure your offer price to buy.
Feel free to shoot me an email or call me to chat about your buying & selling plans. Please also check out my Valley of Heart’s Delight blog for comparative market info.
Thanks for reading,
408 204-7673
mary (at) popehandy.com
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