How is the Monte Sereno real estate market? Because the city is small, with just about 4000 residents, there usually are few homes listed for sale or selling, and with small numbers we can get seeming volatility.  Here are the quick statistics for the closed sales in the last 4-7 weeks to give a sense of how things are going. Sales data for April comes from my Monte Sereno Real Estate Report  and data for the last 30 days comes from me via the MLS (I crunched them this morning).

Median sales price of houses sold in Monte Sereno in April was $1,415,000.  For the last 30 days, it was $2,169,857.

Average Days on Market of houses sold in April was 97.  But for the last 30 days, it’s 78.

The sales price to list price ratio in April was 95%.  The last 30 days it’s up to 97%.

The market is better all around for home sales in Monte Sereno than it was just a couple of months ago. Next, let’s look at the live charts from Altos to see how active listings reflect the market as seen from viewing the solds.

Live Altos Charts for the Monte Sereno Real Estate Market

The median list price of all homes listed on the MLS in Monte Sereno and in San Jose – an interesting comparison!  San Jose has far fewer dips and jumps than Monte Sereno….Good improvement showing recently, though.

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The annual market report is out at popehandy.REReport.com and we can now learn how 2011 compared to 2010.  The median sales price for houses in Santa Clara County was off 5.3% overall.  But from one part of the valley to the next it varied wildly with 6 cities or areas finding themselves in positive territory while others were off by double digits.

In the image to the left, I’ve put into bold the cities where the median sales price of houses which sold and closed escrow in 2011 were ahead of 2010′s pricing.

What is it that makes Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Mountain View and Palo Alto “in the black”?

Most of these cities/towns are upscale, west valley communities.  But so are Saratoga, Cupertino, and Monte Sereno.

Gilroy was especially hard-hit with the housing downturn so perhaps in that case, it’s just coming back into more of a balance. (Then again, so was Morgan Hill and it’s still off by 12%.)

The LinkedIn IPO and others in the Palo Alto area drove prices up for some parts of the housing market nearby and it’s likely that this explains the positive growth for Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills.  That said, it would seem that Los Altos, and perhaps even Sunnyvale would have seen stronger numbers on the same account.  Perhaps school scores are the key driver here.

Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno often behave somewhat similarly as they are adjacent to one another and often attract similar home buyers who want good schools, a nice downtown area nearby and scenic beauty with the hills.  The annual numbers show Monte Sereno down 6.7%, Saratoga down 2% but Los Gatos up 6.4%.  With Monte Sereno, there are very few sales each month and each year (only about 4,000 residents), so there can be a wider swing without it necessarily being accurate. Saratoga and Los Gatos each have about 30,000 people who call these areas home, though, so the data is much more helpful.  Saratoga and Los Gatos both have multiple school districts, views, homes with better proximity to “downtown” and more variables – I think we’d have to dig a lot deeper to learn why these two neighboring markets are so diverse.  We might also have to look at multiple years of data to see if Saratoga spiked while LG slumped to explain the difference. (more…)

AreaVibes.com ranks cities all over the United States and recently came out with the top 100 for California.  Many of our Silicon Valley cities and towns made the grade!

• Los Altos Hills # 3
• Monte Sereno #  6
• Los Altos # 8
• Saratoga #  9
• Palo Alto #  10
• Foster City # 11
• Cupertino # 26
• Mountain View # 27
• Belmont # 29
• San Carlos # 35
• Menlo Park # 38
• Woodside # 46
• Portola Valley # 50
• Atherton # 64
• Los Gatos # 67
• Sunnyvale # 82
• Scotts Valley # 89
• Daly City # 96

They called the Loyola area of Los Altos a city and it was on this list too (# 39 ) but it is only a district, not a city or town. Surprising, then, that they didn’t include Almaden Valley (part of San Jose) or other nice districts as well.

To see the entire list, please visit their website:
http://www.areavibes.com/best-places/california/

How’s the market for condos and townhouses in Los Gatos and Saratoga?  This morning I ran the numbers for “area 16″ (the Los Gatos and Monte Sereno areas, which includes a tiny bit of San Jose also) and “area 17″ (the Saratoga area, also includes borderline areas of San Jose and Cupertino) in our multiple listing service.

Hottest are the distressed condominium or townhome sales – short sales and bank owned or REO properties in Los Gatos and Saratoga.  Coldest (hardest to sell) are the “regular sales”.  Buyers are going after the bargain pricing that the pre-foreclosure and foreclosure listings offer.  Have a look:

The months of inventory are longest in Saratoga, with 9 months of inventory for town houses and condos.  The ratio of pending sales to active listings is lowest there, too, a mere 11%.

The months of inventory for Los Gatos short sales is a fast paced one month and the pendings outnumber the actives four to one!

Home buyers: if you are attempting to purchase a distressed condo in either of these high-end west valley areas, be prepared to act fast and present a strong offer.  Your odds will be better with a regular sale!

Home sellers: if you are selling a non-distressed condominium or townhouse in Saratoga or Los Gatos, especially if it’s a luxury property, be prepared to make your home the best value to attract a good buyer.  As has been said elsewhere, for this segment of the real estate market “it’s a price war and a beauty contest”.  Everything has to be just right for you to enjoy a successful sale now.

If you arrived into Silicon Valley via Highway 101, driving south from San Francisco, you might believe that the Santa Clara Valley, the San Jose area and Silicon Valley as a whole has got to seem to be the ugliest place on earth. Although heavily traveled, that is not the “scenic route”.

So, too, if you are looking for a place to live and are groping to find a place that is reasonably priced, fairly safe and not a terrible commute distance. You might not even have “is nice looking” on your wish list. You might not think it’s possible if all you ever see are the ugly concrete tilt-up buildings in north San Jose, Santa Clara, Alviso, or anywhere along the 237 corridor.  That area is an architectural wasteland.

Let me assure you: there are a lot of beautiful places in Silicon Valley where you can rent or buy a home. But how do you find them? It helps a lot to have a local give you a few pointers.  I’ll give you some tips today on finding a scenic place to live.

Hills – An easy way to find a scenic location to make your home is to settle near the hills, especially those in the west valley (the Santa Cruz Mountains or the Coastal Range) as they are green year-round. Communities at the base of the west valley foothills include, in Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Cupertino, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Los Gatos, and the Almaden Valley area of San Jose. All of these areas are adjacent to the hills or mountains and offer far better than average schools (many of them qualify as great – compare costs between these areas). (more…)

Finding a home to rent in Silicon Valley can be an enormous challenge.  Most Realtors don’t do rentals (since very few are offered on our MLS), so consumers looking to find rental housing are often doing it on their own.  This can be especially tough if you are relocating to the San Jose area!

Who you gonna call?

In my experience, the best places to find homes to rent, besides literally driving through neighborhoods, is online with Craigslist or via Bay Rentals.  Bay Rentals does charge a fee but they do great work and you will know you’re not getting scammed.

Below you can browse properties offered for rent in Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga.  There aren’t very many of them but it’s a piece of the information puzzle.

Showing properties 1 - 3 of 3. See more city of Los Gatos real estate.
(all data current as of 5/23/2012)

1. $12,500 : 16491 S Kennedy Dr, Los Gatos
   
   5 beds, 4 full, 1 part baths

   Home size: 6,033 sq ft

   Lot size: 4.28 ac
   
2. $6,000 : 1449 Elwood Drive, Los Gatos
   
   5 beds, 3 full, 1 part baths

   Home size: 2,620 sq ft

   Lot size: 9,010 sqft
   
3. $25,000 : 14530 Deer Park Ct, Los Gatos
   
   4 beds, 3 full, 2 part baths

   Home size: 12,500 sq ft

   Lot size: 17 sqft
   

Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.

Sorry, but we couldn't find any results in the MLS that match the specified search criteria.

Showing properties 1 - 3 of 3. See more city of Saratoga real estate.
(all data current as of 5/23/2012)

1. $5,200 : 13015 Via Escuela Ct, Saratoga
   
   4 beds, 3 full baths

   Home size: 3,100 sq ft

   Lot size: 13,200 sqft
   
2. $5,500 : 20475 Chalet Ln, Saratoga
   
   4 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths

   Home size: 2,510 sq ft

   Lot size: 11,050 sqft
   
3. $5,200 : 13744 Camino Rico, Saratoga
   
   3 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths

   Home size: 1,752 sq ft

   Lot size: 9,945 sqft
   

Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.

Yesterday we looked at the types of home sales around Silicon Valley by price point.  Not terribly surprising, most of the short sales and bank owned homes were in the lowest price ranges.  Today we’ll look at this type of information not by pricing tier but instead by geography – in other words, by either town, city or district of San Jose (area).  This post will not cover every area but will be a sampling a few communities, mostly on the west side of the valley (since that’s primarily where I work).

By way of reminder, the small image to the left reflects Santa Clara County’s houses for sale as a whole – all areas and all price points. (You can see the full sized image by clicking on it.) The green area represents “regular home sales” and the brick red and light orange signify distressed  properties listed on the MLS for sale (red is short sales and orange is bank owned or REOs). Next let’s see a few regions within the county to see how things are faring geographically.

1. Almaden Valley area of San Jose – homes listed for sale by type – very few distressed properties on the market!

Almaden is a lovely southwest San Jose suburban community (zip code 95120) that grew up initially with the cinnabar or mercury mining activity.  Today it’s an upscale area of more expensive homes than most of the county, it enjoys really good schools and scenic views of the coastal range as well as the Santa Teresa Foothills.  Housing here is costly but residents love the quality of life. Since the cost of homes for sale here is high, it’s not super surprising, after seeing yesterday’s post, that there are very few distressed homes on the market here. Next we’ll check the other extreme…. (more…)