Late April 2009 Los Gatos Real Estate Market Update

The real estate market seems to be turning, but primarily in the lower priced areas of Silicon Valley.  The single family homes in the lowest price points seem to be flying off the market.  In some areas, the majority of houses that fit that description are bank owned and short sale properties (such as the Alum Rock district of San Jose, where all but 5% of home sales in the first quarter were distressed property sales).

But what about Los Gatos?

At this point there are 254 homes for sale (single family homes, condos and townhomes), 56 pending sales and 29 which have closed in the last thirty days. That represents an inventory of 8.75 months (listings divided by closed sales).  It's also evident that not everything which sells actually closes since the ratio of pendings to list prices is stronger than the ratio of closeds to list prices.

The lowest priced homes in Los Gatos are faring better than more expensive homes in Los Gatos, which is also the case throughout Santa Clara County.

Here are some graphs to help Live in Los Gatos readers to see what's happening in Los Gatos:

As you can see from the graphs, the condos (representing the lowest price points in Los Gatos) seem to be faring better than the single family homes.

Below is a chart of the list prices for single family homes in Los Gatos with 95030 and 95032 zip codes ("in the town") as well as 95033 (county area in the mountains).  In all cases, the market is more favorable in the lowest price points.

RE: Late April 2009 Los Gatos Real Estate Market Update

I am noticing that in the LG Market, there is a trending toward pricing going back to the 2003 levels. Transactions that closed in April are indicating that, particularly for short sales, even for homes in great shape, homes have sold at or lower than their 2003 purchases. This may be an inevitable outcome of the ratio of pricing between the more moderately priced areas and LG/Sarataga etc being forced to stay about the same. Eg. if the price per sq foot was 1.8-2.0X in LG vs. San Jose, that ratio is going to be inevitably reached again....