Palo Alto Market Update, April 19th: Single Family Homes

As of today this is the snapshot of the Palo Alto single family home market:

143 Active listings

39 Pending sales

13  Closed sales this month 

What does this mean? There has been some change in inventory this week with 7 more active listings and 7 more pending sales, which is a 25% increase in pending sales with only a less than 5% increase in active listings. This may be because the easing up a little on jumbo loans. B of A has a loan with 20% down (up to a million and a half dollar loan) and other banks are being more aggressive with their 5 year fixed loans. Again, the over 2 million market is very slow with 53 active listings and 4 pending sales. Under 2 million there are 90 active listings and 35 pending sales, less than a 1 to 3 ratio of pending to active, which is definitely improving. It is also possible that increase in the stock market is also freeing up some cash which is helping the buyers’ down payment problems. 

I am behind on solds for this month so I will do them all as a separate blog post next.   

If you are interested in finding the final selling price of any home, anywhere, you can do it on my web site. Go towww.marcymoyer.com and click on Cyberhome Home Valuation. You can then type in any address next to the search icon and get the county records.

If you need anything else please feel free to contact me. I am here to help you.

Marcy Moyer Intero Real Estate
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
www.marcymoyer.com

Who is Selling in Palo Alto?

On 1/31/09 I wrote the following blog:

There has been a lot of speculation about what will happen to the market in Palo Alto. Will it drop 30%, drop 10%, improve in 6 months? Most of the argument against Palo Alto having a lot more decrease in home value, is the thought that most people here did not get bad loans and therefore do not have to sell. If most people don’t have to sell, the prices should not go down too much, but if more people selling do have to sell that would bode for sharper decreases. I thought it would be interesting to see as best I can, who is selling.  I have broken the listings up into over 2 million and under 2 million for the asking price and put the listings into the following categories:  

I am updating this on 4/12/09 The numbers on the left are from 01/31/09 and on the right are from 04/11/09


Over 2 Million:

10. New construction          16 New construction

5. Vacant                              6 Vacant

7. Owner occupied              20  Owner Occupied

1. Short Sale (this is also new construction but I put it in short sale)  1 Same house on Kingsley

1. Rental                               0 Rented

1. to be built                          2 To be built but has structure one of these is the same

     0   Bank owned                       0





Under 2 Million:

10. New construction                   12 New Construction

14. Vacant                                     32 Vacant properties

17. Owner occupied                     32 Owner Occupied

0. Short Sale                                 0 Short Sales

1. Bank Owned                         0 Bank Owned

   5 Rentals                                     10 Rentals

1   Stanford property                      3 Stanford Properties

On Jan 31^st  I wrote these comments.
So what does this mean?  Quite frankly I am not entirely sure, but I believe that new and vacant properties are likely to have more flexibility in pricing than owner occupied homes.  The one big exception to that rule would be short sales, but as you can see there is only 1 in Palo Alto.  There is a much higher percentage of new and vacant homes in the listings over 2 million, so maybe it means there is more room for prices to drop in this segment.  We’ll see.  I will keep you updated about who is selling over the next few months and how that may relate to what the market is doing.

My thoughts today:

The inventory is almost double what is was in Jan. but the increase has not been entirely across the board.

Over 2 million the number of new and vacant homes has gone up a little, but not doubled, but the number of owner occupied homes has almost tripled. The common wisdom is that if you want to get the most for your home, don’t sell now. My guess is that at least some portion of these people have to sell and we may some short sale activity or just more price flexibility in this segment, although I am not predicting a huge wave here yet.

Under 2 million there is a doubling of rental, owner occupied and vacant but not new construction. A lot of the new construction in PA is in the townhouse classification so not part of my analysis. 

Although the numbers do not point to it currently, I think that we are going to see some short sales in the under 2 million range also. My rational for this is that it is more likely that the newer (last 10 years ) owners of these properties have loans, or have re-financed. 54% of the US homeowners owe more on their homes than they are worth. Some of those people have to live in Palo Alto and some of those people will have to sell for a variety of reasons including life changes, job changes or losses, family issues. If they need to sell they will need to sell short. The thing to look for will be a big spike in owner occupied homes for sale compared to the relative number of homes for sale.  

Another group of short sellers could be builders who can’t sell and can’t make payments. We may see more of those in the over 2 million market, but it hasn’t happened yet. 

If you are interested in finding the final selling price of any home, anywhere, you can do it on my web site. Go to www.marcymoyer.com and click on Cyberhome Home Valuation. You can then type in any address next to the search icon and get the county records.

If you need anything else please feel free to contact me. I am here to help you.

Marcy Moyer Intero Real Estate
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
www.marcymoyer.com

 

Palo Alto Market Update, April 8th: Single Family Homes

As of today this is the snapshot of the Palo Alto single family home market: 

136 Active listings

32 Pending sales

8  Closed sales this week 

What does this mean? There has not been much change in inventory this week in active listings. There's been 3 more pending sales which is a 10% increase. This may be because of the slight easing up of jumbo loans. B of A has a loan with 20% down up to a million and a half dollar loan. Again, the over 2 million market is very slow with 48 active listings and 6 pending sales. Under 2 million there are 89 active listings and 26 pending sales, less than a1 to 4 ratio of pending to active, which is not terrific, but about average for many other surrounding cities. Another lesson for this week, if you list a house far enough below comps it will still sell with multiple offers over asking price. 

Here are the solds from the past week on MLS: 

Address	City	Beds	Bath	DOM	CDOM	LOE	SqFt	$/SqFt	Lot(SqFt)	List Price	Age	Sale Price
SOLD
800 E Greenwich Pl	Palo Alto	5	4+	28	28	34	5,069	$798.97	10,454	$4,098,000	6	$4,050,000
1444 Pitman Av	Palo Alto	4	2 1/2	34	34	14	2,500	$680	7,875	$1,850,000	53	$1,700,000
425 Alder Ln	Palo Alto	5	3 1/2	20	20	29	2,893	$501.21		$1,495,900	1	$1,450,000
3474 Kenneth Dr	Palo Alto	4	2	5	5	36	1,659	$754.07	6,534	$1,249,000	52	$1,251,000
2672 Kipling St	Palo Alto	3	2	10	10	28	1,533	$815.39	5,662	$1,095,000	53	$1,250,000
3390 Greer Rd	Palo Alto	5	2	15	15	30	1,965	$610.69	7,381	$1,388,000	52	$1,200,000
3070 Ramona St	Palo Alto	3	2	25	25	24	1,411	$761.87	6,000	$1,089,000	54	$1,075,000
405 Oregon Av	Palo Alto	3	1	58	58	29	1,230	$853.66	8,125	$1,138,000	59	$1,050,000
3244 Waverley St	Palo Alto	2	1	7	7	29	925	$1,054.05	6,250	$998,000	59	$975,000
AVERAGE VALUES				22	22	28	2,132	$758.88	7,285	$1,600,100	43	$1,555,667

 

Pittman was originally listed for $1,975,000. 

Greer was originally listed for $1,488,000. 
 

If you are interested in finding the final selling price of any home, anywhere, you can do it on my web site. Go to www.marcymoyer.com and click on Cyberhome Home Valuation. You can then type in any address next to the search icon and get the county records. 

If you need anything else please feel free to contact me. I am here to help you. 

Marcy Moyer Intero Real Estate

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285