Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Palo Alto CA Market Update, July 27th: One Year Later


 Sorry for the recent silence on my blog. Summer is busy! 

Lately I've been interested in tracking market changes by looking at my old market update posts and comparing them to current trends. Here's the latest in what I hope to be a semi-regular occurrence... the One Year Later market update. Let me know if these compare/contrast updates are as interesting for you as they are for me.



Here's today's snapshot of the Palo Alto single family home market: 

121 Active listings
33  Pending sales

What does this mean? The inventory of active listings decreased by 1 and pending sales decreased by 3.  This is virtually unchanged from last week when there was a huge decrease in pending sales. The fact that pending has stayed stable is a good sign. The over 2 million market has 37  active listings and 7 pending sales which is pretty much the same as last week with only a decrease of 3 in active listings and the same number of pending . Under 2 million there are 84 active listings and 33 pending sales, which is slightly better than last weeks numbers. My guess is that we have hit the doldrums of summer and we will not see much change in August except maybe a little less inventory which is typical for August.


And here's where we are today:

100 Active listings
57 Pending sales

Over 2 Million:
36 Active listings
9 Pending Sales

Under 2 Million
64 Active Listings
48 Pending Sales

What does this mean?  Not much has changed since last July.  There were more listings last year, but the active to pending ratio was pretty much the same both above and below 2 million.  So there were more active listings and pending sales last year, but the percentage of listings selling is pretty much the same.  How does this jive with what the chatter in the news and real community saying we have hit bottom and prices are going up?

My take is that there is a lot of activity over a few houses.  If a home is priced low for the market and it is in a desirable location it is most likely to get multiple offers and be sold for over asking price.  But, a few homes selling for more than asking, and possibly more than market value, does not make for a fundamental change in market dynamics. 

Last year I predicted that the coming year would not bring much change in the market. Year over year I think I am correct.  Despite flurries of activity (particularly in the under million dollar market) overall things are similar.  Fewer homes, but fewer buyers.  Loans are still a challenge, jobs are still insecure, and the stock market is still volatile.

We still have a desirable market and buyers willing to pay a lot of money to live here, but homes are not flying off the shelf any faster now than they did last year if you consider active to pending listings a measure of how active or slow the market is.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
650-619-9285
D.R.E.  01191194

Photo courtesy of smartpassiveincome.com. 

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