Mountain View Housing Market – First Quarter 2010 Update
by Alex Wang on Jun 01, 2010 | No Comments »
(Shoreline Lake in Mountain View)
As in the neighboring cities of Palo Alto and Los Altos, the Mountain View housing market in the first quarter of 2010 has rebounded from the previous year.
The characteristics of Mountain View – situated in Silicon Valley and home to tech companies such as Google, Symantec and Intuit; one of the stronger school districts in California; a friendly downtown area next to Caltrain; and a more affordable single-family home and condominium and townhouse market compared to its northern neighbors – means that homebuyers are returning to the area to take advantage of reduced home prices that have occurred since the real estate crisis a few years back.
In the first quarter of 2010, the median sales price for single-family homes in Mountain View was $875,000, a slight decline from $900,000 in 2009. Though the median sales price dipped, the turnaround for this past quarter was that 50 homes sold with an average days on market of 24 days, compared to 41 sold and 62 days in 2009 during the same time period.
Mountain View home sales and the number of days on market have returned to 2008 levels, before the crisis really showed its teeth, but the median sales price this past quarter is still 20 percent lower than in 2008, which was $1.095 million.
The price range of single-family homes sold in Mountain View this past quarter, from $560,000 to $1.575 million, reflects a more affordable market than Los Altos and Palo Alto.
A strong local condominium and townhouse market
There is a larger market for condos and townhomes in Mountain View compared to Palo Alto and Los Altos, which makes it great for first-time buyers right now, especially when considering the depreciated market and government incentives.
A total of 52 condos and townhomes sold in Mountain View this past quarter at a median sales price of $589,000. Most of them had two or three bedrooms and took up an average of 1,327 square feet. To compare, Palo Alto sold 26 for a median price of $725,000 and Los Altos only sold seven for a median price of $780,000. If we were to take out properties that are less than five years old (in order to compare resale values) there was still 50 properties that sold in Mountain View, 15 in Palo Alto that sold for a median price of $672,000, and just two sold in Los Altos.
What sold for $875,000
A 1,859 square foot, four-bedroom and three-bath house was listed for $875,000 and sold for the same price this past quarter. It is a 10-year-old house and sits on a 3,920-square-foot lot in a cul-de-sac on Plum Court.
Categories: Mountain View, Neighborhoods, Silicon Valley News
