Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Part of the advantages of Silicon Valley is that the housing market ride for the past few years has been less bumpy than what the nation has experienced. A good example of this calm is in the city Mountain View.

Even examined against our other comparison cities, Mountain View has been the most stable, especially in regard to the median sales price. It bumped up to $1,148,440 during the boon in 2007, but unlike everybody else in 2009, it bumped up instead of sliding. Since then the city median has floated at $900,000 for single-family homes.

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Oct.26.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Mountain View, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Sunnyvale has gone through another quarter without any major hiccups, showing improvements from a year ago. The median sales price has been steadily increasing from its recovery in early 2009, and is equivalent to 2006 prices. Average days on market have also dropped to 41 days, down from 77 days in the first quarter of 2009, though it has yet to reach the unusually low 23 days that occurred in the second quarter of 2006.

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Oct.26.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Silicon Valley News, Sunnyvale ] Comment Here »

Bay Area home sales in August may have dropped to an 18-year low (an 11% decline from last year), but the median sales price rose 6.9% from August 2009, according to a report released by MDA DataQuick this September. And viewed with a wider lens, things have been steadily improving in the Bay Area:

Last month was the second in a row to post a month-to-month decline in the median, which so far this year has peaked at $410,000 in May and June. On a year-over-year basis, the Bay Area median has risen for 11 straight months, though before July those increases had been in the double digits – ranging from 10.6 percent to 31.0 percent – since last November.

_{Data includes single-family homes and condos. Source: MDA DataQuick}

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Sep.30.2010 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Market Updates, Silicon Valley News ] 2 Comments »

_{photo credit: wikipedia}

The New York Times this weekend had an interesting article on passive houses, a building standard popular in Europe that reduces energy consumption for heating and cooling by 90% compared to a conventional home.

It has been a good deal more expensive to build, however, than the average home. That might partly explain why the passive-building standard is only now getting off the ground in the United States — despite years of data suggesting that America’s drafty building methods account for as much as 40 percent of its primary energy use, 70 percent of its electricity consumption and nearly 40 percent of its carbon-dioxide emissions.

Proponents of the standard, who note that passive homes often use up to 90 percent less heating and cooling energy than similar homes built to local code, say the Landaus embody the willingness of more homeowners to embrace passive building in the United States. Even Habitat for Humanity, the affordable-housing philanthropy, is now experimenting with the standard.

Yet the market remains minuscule, and the materials and expertise needed to build passive homes are often hard to find. While some 25,000 certified passive structures — from schools and commercial buildings to homes and apartment houses — have already been built in Europe, there are just 13 in the United States, with a few dozen more in the pipeline.

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Sep.28.2010 [ Filed under: Home Owners, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

Real estate levels in 2010 appear to be either dropping or freezing nationwide during the usually active spring and summer months due to the wake of the 2007 housing crisis. But in Silicon Valley, where the characteristically warmer temperature seems to not only apply to the weather, the local real estate is making its way back from the extremes of a couple years ago.

So from 2000 to the second quarter of 2010, where is the Silicon Valley housing market now? Pretty much where we started. Number of closed sales for single-family homes in Santa Clara County during the second quarter of 2010 are down 4% from the same period in 2000; and the average sales price is up 3%.

This post is an update of an earlier market analysis that we did in 2007. And in the graphs below we’ll be able to see the dot-com bubble burst, the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the housing bubble develop and pop, and the current signs of a housing recovery. The data is collected from 2000 to the second quarter of 2010 from all 15 cities of Santa Clara County off of MLS listings Inc., looking at single-family homes and condominiums/townhouses.

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Sep.17.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

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So you are ready to move out and sell your home. And you found yourself a real estate agent to help save time, expenses, and the headache of navigating the myriad of details that go into putting a house on the market. But not all agents have the professional experience necessary to sell your home quickly and for the highest price. Or even worse, they are lazy. Here are 10 best practices that a good listing agent will use to get the best price for your home:

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Sep.01.2010 [ Filed under: Home Owners, Silicon Valley News ] 4 Comments »

August 25, 2010 Update: As the banner says, we won! Though I don’t have a speech ready, I’d at least like to thank all our blog readers and fans on Facebook for really turning out and pushing us ahead of the competition. The runner-up, CJ Brasiel, runs a great blog and I’m sure she’ll be snapping at our blog heels come next year. Also, the iPad raffle winner will be announced at 9 a.m. Aug. 30, 2010, on the Rainmaker Properties company site. Thanks again to all our supporters, and if you have any comments or real estate questions, let us know.

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Aug.20.2010 [ Filed under: Bay Area Real Estate, Silicon Valley News ] 1 Comment »

In the second quarter of this year (April to June) we can really see which areas of the housing market have bounced back from the crisis and which areas are still struggling. To visualize those details, and to complement our second quarter 2010 analyses of Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale, we have created some city comparison graphs.

We’ll cover total sales volume, sale price to listing price ratio, days on market, median selling price, and number of homes sold, using data on single-family homes off of MLS listings Inc.

First, let’s have a look at:
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Aug.12.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Neighborhoods, Silicon Valley News ] 4 Comments »

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Because Palo Alto has a wide range of home prices, the entry-level market remained strong as buyers looked for bargains and the high-end market slowly recovered through the second quarter of 2010.

The median sales price in Palo Alto is 5.3% lower than the same period in 2008, at $1,468,000. A huge jump of 82.2% from last quarter and just 5.5% lower than in 2008 was realized in total sales volume, at $205,188,388. Average days on market is just over a month and there were 123 sales this past quarter, similar to 2008.

Palo Alto holds its title as a premier housing market with the highest total sales volume of our four comparison cities, and will continue to become increasingly difficult for buyers to enter the market as the sales price to list price ratio continues its rise to 100%.

Aug.10.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley News ] 2 Comments »

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Mountain View serves as a good example in our four comparison cities to see that the strongest competition after the housing crisis is for entry- and mid-range homes.

The standout numbers this quarter for Mountain View are 102 closed sales, 121.7% more than last quarter and 50% more than 2008; and $98.5 million in total sales volume, 136.3% more than last quarter and 35.3% more than 2008.

Median sales prices and average days on market are creeping towards 2008 levels. The sales price to list price ratio is just above 100%, meaning seller and buyer perceptions are balanced, though slightly in favor of the seller.

Aug.10.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Mountain View, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Los Altos burned through the summer months of the second quarter this year as it showed strong signs towards a sustained housing market recovery.

The median sales price slipped 1.4% from the quarter before, to $1.5 million. But the exciting news for home sellers is the precipitous drop in average days on market to 41, from 73 the quarter before, and 98 closed sales, which is equivalent to the same quarter in 2008. The sales price to list price ratio is 98.21%, meaning that more and more buyers are paying closer to list price, reflecting a shift to balanced buyer and seller perceptions. Total sales volume is $160,352,888, which is 17.3% lower compared to the same period in 2008.

Overall, Los Altos realized the greatest drop in mean sales price of our four comparison cities and has yet to recover the nearly 13% difference in price from the same time period in 2008 — meaning home values are still depreciated in the area.

Aug.10.2010 [ Filed under: Los Altos, Market Updates, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

_{(single-family home data from MLS listings Inc.)}

Sunnyvale is one of two cities in our comparison that has turned into a seller’s market the past two quarters. Perhaps it is the urgency of the buyers to find an entry-level house (Sunnyvale has the lowest median sales price of our four comparison cities) before the effects of the housing crisis completely recede that is driving demand.

The median sales price jumped 12.7% compared to last quarter, to $851,000. Average days on market remained the same as last quarter, while number of homes sold was just higher than the same period in 2008, at 177. Sales price to list price ratio is 100.95%, meaning most sellers are encountering multiple offers over listing price.

Although the median sales price and total sales volume are still lagging compared to 2008 numbers, Sunnyvale is reporting strong numbers in other areas this quarter, showing that the city has pushed out of its slump.

Aug.10.2010 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Silicon Valley News, Sunnyvale ] Comment Here »