How is the real estate market in the Willow Glen area of San Jose?  There are multiple ways of viewing it – via price point, school district, proximity to “downtown Willow Glen”, by numbers or percentages of distressed sales (sale type), and many more criteria.  Today we’ll look at the broad market numbers for the MLS “area 10″ (all of Willow Glen) and at times just the zip code for San Jose 95125, which covers the majority of the Willow Glen area.  This post will only cover houses or “single family homes”, not condominiums or townhomes.

I ran the months of inventory for homes in Willow Glen (our MLS area 10) by sale type.  Here’s what I found – most of the market appears to have about 4.95 months of inventory, with short sales being considerably longer.  (This may have had different results had I isolated certain school areas or price points – this is a “sweeping view” of the area only.) The National Association of Realtors says that less than 6 months is a sellers market, but for our area, this is fairly “cool” and most sellers would not find the market to be all that much in their favor. (Six months is supposed to be a balanced market.)

It is unusual for there to be so little variation in the MOI, so I double checked but this appears correct. Often bank owned homes or REOs fly off the market.  Odd that it’s not happening here, too.

Next, a selection of statistics and trends in the numbers from my REReport for Willow Glen (click on link for more info) – prices here reflect sold prices (median and average), not list prices:

Prices appear down from the prior month but up from a year ago.  That’s good news for Willow Glen home owners, who hope that the worst is now behind us.  Days on market are better than the previous month (but worse than a year ago) and inventory is up from last month but almost the same – just a little less – than a year ago.  It’s a mixed bag.

The next batch of info comes via my MLS, which I pulled together using a new tool, the Realtors Property Resource.  What I like about this set is that it includes distressed properties (banked owned homes or REOs as well as short sales and pre-foreclosures).

If the lack of new notices of default continues, we’ll see a lot of improvement in the Willow Glen market.

Next let’s look at the data provided by Altos Research (which uses list prices rather than sales prices). This is helpful as it views the listing activity by price quartile. That is, you can see that “the market” for the top tier or luxury homes in Willow Glen is behaving a bit differently from entry level houses in the same general area.

First, the median list price for San Jose 95125 (which covers about 90% or more of Willow Glen), going back as far as 2005:

It looks rather dismal, taken historically, until you pause to note the recent and very welcome uptick.

Next, the same data but broken down by price quartile - I think it is very interesting that the top tier of pricing there is at almost the same point as it was at the beginning of this time period. That certainly isn’t true for the other groups!

Right now the three lower price ranges seem to be moving up while the luxury home prices are moving the opposite direction.

Same data but just the last one year – not so dramatic:

So how’s the market? If your house or the one you want to purchase is a short sale in the highest pricing strata, the market is unduly soft. If your home is a regular sale in a lower price point, it may be completely different.

When I work with sellers and buyers on “their” market, I run the numbers every which way, but tailored to the home they own or wish to own – the schools, the price point, the sale type, how many distressed homes are nearby etc. The market is not one monolithic creature, but instead is a patchwork of many micro markets.

For information on your micro-market, please contact me! Should we decide to work together in buying or selling your home, I will provide you current and pinpointed market information.

Next week I’ll be putting a Willow Glen house on the market so have been paying attention to the trends & statistics for this charming part of San Jose.  Here’s a look at the absorption rate for Willow Glen houses and duet homes (numbers run yesterday) by price band.

Willow Glen Months of Inventory June 17 2010

My Real Estate Report provides numbers (which I don’t have to crunch!) on a monthly basis for all of Santa Clara County, including the Willow Glen (area 10, mostly 95125) part of San Jose.  It’s a good, broad view of the Willow Glen market overall.  Here’s the summary for the  May 2010 Real Estate Report for Willow Glen – June’s info will be out sometime in early July. Click on the link to get all the data rather than just this quick view.

The Willow Glen real estate market trends are up month over month for the median & average sales prices, but the average sales price is still down year over year.  Pendings are down compared to April (possibly a reaction to the federal home buyer tax credit?) and year over year.  The list price to sales price ratio is up, though, and the days on market are shorter.

Looking at both sets of numbers, mine and the REReport’s, it is clear that the homes priced up to about $900,000 are the ones leading the recovery, and that the most expensive homes are not selling well at all.  When we began to see improvement in the market, it was first entry level houses that were selling well.  Eventually it spread to the move-up market, both here and throughout Silicon Valley.  Will it continue?  The very high end homes in Santa Clara County are selling much better than they were a year ago, but as you can see, there’s still loads of room for improvement for the luxury homes market.

San Jose’s westside suburb of Cambrian Park appears to have “bottomed out” in February or March.  Home prices are rising there now, at least in many price points.   Cambrian consists of two zip codes, 95124 and 95118 (and a sliver of 95008) and two high school districts, Campbell Union High School District and San Jose Unified School District.

The “months of inventory” reflects how long the current inventory of homes for sale would take to be absorbed if sales continued at the same pace and no new homes came on the market. Six months is a balanced market more than six is a buyer’s market, and less than six is a seller’s market.

As you can see, it’s a seller’s market in Cambrian Park in both school districts!  (This may not be true for all homes in all prices and all conditions, but it is indicative of the overal market.)

With inventory selling really fast, it is not surprising that prices are rising.  Below please view the Altos Report (to which I have a subscription) for the last 6 months:

This is a little busy, but here’s the same data but broken down by price quartile:

Here’s a view of what’s happening by zip code with inventory:

Buying a home in Cambrian? Be prepared for multiple offers – it may not be happening for all homes, but it is happening for many of them!

The Los Gatos real estate market appears to remain a ” buyer’s market”, but it entirely depends on which part of the Los Gatos market you’re discussing.

This post will cover:

• single family homes (99% houses, but a few duet homes)
• 95030 and 95032 zip codes
• Two high school districts:
  • Los Gatos Saratoga High School District (meaning Los Gatos High School)
  • Campbell Union High School District (meaning Westmont or Leigh High Schools)
• varying price points in all of the above

General comments:
Most of 95030 is in the Los Gatos Saratoga High School District, but there is a very, very tiny portion of it which belongs to the Campbell Union High School District.  The percentage is so small as to be statistically insignificant, but I wanted to mention it here for the sake of accuracy and I will include it below.  The numbers below are from our MLS provider, MLSListings.com, with the numbers crunched by me, Mary Pope-Handy.  While I have made every effort to be 100% accurate, I do not guarantee it (don’t sure me if there’s a typo or other error!).

Overview of the basic numbers and months of inventory for the housing market in the town of Los Gatos overall  - homes for sale, pending sales, and closed sales within the last month:

It appears to be a buyer’s market, which is true for much of the town, but not all of it.  There is variation to a phenomenal degree depending on price point, zip code, and school district.  Below we’ll look at all of it and see market conditions for each segment.
Let’s view the data by zip codes and by high school district:

The number of pendings can show where the market’s going – in many parts of the town, the number of pendings exceeds the number of recently closed homes.  In some parts of Silicon Valley, this is due to a high volume of short sales which are pending, but never actually close escrow. Here in LG, there are very few distressed properties on the market, so it does not appear to be the root cause of more pendings than closeds. Instead, the high number of pendings in some areas seem to point to an uptick of market activity.  This is really atypical for August (normally August is a very slow month for sales compared to earlier in the summer).

So, the market is heating up.  Also of note is that It has been VERY hard to sell a home that’s not “in the schools”. This is witnessed by the fact that almost nothing has closed recently.

Now let’s break it down by both price point AND by high school district in Los Gatos (95030 and 95032 zip codes merged):

This is interesting because there are two “sweet spots” in the Los Gatos housing market, both of the “in the schools”. First is the group of homes for sale in the Los Gatos School District which are listed at under $1,000,000.  As prices rise, the months of inventory grows from 3.75 to 6 to 8.25.  But then between $2 million and $3 million, there was a spurt of sales activity with 4 closings recently and only 15 available.   Both of these sweet spots have only 3.75 months of inventory right now.

At the other extreme is the reality of the market not in the Los Gatos School District. About 2/3 of the market is in these areas further from downtown, but homes with Leigh High School and Westmont High School have simply not been selling well right and closing this summer. Oddly, the market is less bad in the higher price ranges – perhaps because those owners are not as worried about schools (and are making use of private schools?  about 1/3 of all students who reside in Los Gatos attend private schools – perhaps the bulk is in 95032?)   BUT look at the pendings and you’ll find that the market is improving in this part of the town significantly.  A month from now we should see a far less dismal report for Los Gatos homes in the Campbell Union High School District.

The Los Gatos real estate market has many nuances in addition to factors such as schools and zip code.  We could dissect the market by any number of factors, from the distressed properties (which do sell for less) to those which views, acreage, historic homes, etc.  When you are thinking of buying or selling a home in Los Gatos, do not simply accept the overview of the town as necessarily relevant to your particular situation.  It is imperative to get the data on your part of the market and to understand what that data actually means.  From the study above, you can see that part of the Los Gatos real estate market is a strong seller’s market (3.25 months of inventory) and others have more than a 2 year supply of inventory (extremely deep buyer’s market).  Not understanding where in the spread your home or desired home sits could literally cost you dearly as you mis-position your home or your offer relative to the market conditions.

If you’re interested in buying or selling a Los Gatos house, townhome or condo, please call me.  If we work together to market your home or purchase a home, I will do my best to assist you in getting the clearest possible picture of the particular segment of the market that relates to you and your situation.

How is the Almaden Valley Real Estate Market doing?

It’s the end of September now, and normally we see a little rally in the market after Labor Day. Let’s see how this September is stacking up in Almaden Valley. Below, please find charts using current list prices courtesy of Altos Research (to which I subscribe).

The Median List price for the Almaden Valley district of San Jose (zip code 95120) has been declining overall. Does this mean that homes are declining in value? Or does it mean that less expensive homes are being offered for sale? Information from sold data indicates that by and large, homes are holding their value in Almaden right now. The declines in asking prices may indicate that sellers simply want prices to be rising more than they actually are, rather than the idea that values are falling.

This first chart indicates how both homes and condominiums or townhouses are faring in terms of median list prices in Almaden. Interestingly, the condo market had a steeply rising list price this last spring, while the single family home market did a milder version of the same a couple of months later. What sellers want for their homes is not matching up to what they are getting.

Next, let’s have a look at the percent of homes that have had price reductions in this part of San Jose. A steep increase in the number of condos needing reductions in price are seen in the timeframe following that rise noted above. This would seem to indicate that condo sellers were more optimistic when putting their homes on the market, but found out over the next couple of months that these asking prices were not realistic. The number of properties getting price decreases among single family homes were a bit later, just like the rising list prices were later, in Almaden. Right now, though, the percentage of sellers decreasing their list prices are about the same for both types of housing – appx 52%. So approximately half the homes currently on the market in Almaden have had at least one price reduction.

If homes are listed too high and must take price reductions, then most likely they are on the market a longer time prior to selling too. The next chart addresses the average days on market for the 95120 zip code area of San Jose. For both condominums and single family homes, it appears that the longest days on market were in spring of this year – the peak being in March for houses and April for condos. The single family home market is worsening now, though, and has been rising since mid-summer. The townhouse and condo market, though, is still on a downward trend. In reality, though, the actual statistics for time on the market are probably worse as some agents will change the MLS number when a steep price change happens.

Finally, a look at the inventory (amount of homes for sale) in Almaden Valley’s houses and condos. Not surprisingly, the inventory has risen dramatically among single family residences over the last year, but now it’s decreasing somewhat. (This is not surprising because the days on market had been rising and so is the percentage of homes getting price decreases within this type of housing). The condo market, though, is faring better now, with inventory rising only gradually.

For Almaden Valley home sellers, the market is not as bad as it has been in recent months, but it is important to price your home realistically and have it well marketed in order to sell. For Silicon Valley home buyers wanting to be in an upscale area with good schools, now is a good time to go shopping in Almaden. It is important to realize that homes are not selling for bargain basement prices in Almaden Valley, unlike in other parts of Santa Clara County, but prices are on the soft side. Motivated sellers may list their home aggressively so don’t assume that every house will sell under list price! Do your homework when buying and you’ll be able to maximize the current market potential.