A couple of weeks ago I was introducing some buyer clients of mine to various neighborhoods in Los Gatos and Cambrian Park to give them a general feel for the area, real estate prices, home styles, and so on.
We drove into the Las Astas area, off Lark Avenue, and decided to pop into an open house at 208 Las Miradas Drive, which was being hosted by the listing agent, Jim Meech of Alain Pinel Realtors. The setting is quite nice and also unique, so I asked him if I could blog about this property. After consulting with the homeowner, he gave me the green light.
Why blog about this house?
As you can see from the photo above,this house enjoys the proximity of many beautiful, large trees. It is a lovely setting. Inside, it's evident that the owner has updated and remodeled the home - the kitchen is beautiful and features slab granite countertops, for instance. The layout is nice, with both a living room and a family room. Finally, a major plus of this home and neighborhood is unseen: this property enjoys the highly regarded Los Gatos School District.
All of this is well and good, but it's not the reason for this post. What's unique and worth blogging about, as I see it, is the precise location of the home. The lot backs up directly to the much beloved Los Gatos Creek Trail.
Being situated directly on the trail provides a number of benefits. It's quick access to Lake Vasona County Park, to town, a shortcut to schools (without busy streets to cross), and of course it's a buffer from other homes. Rather than seeing windows and rooflines behind the house, residents enjoy a canopy of trees.
Details on 208 Las Miradas Drive:
It's a compact, well laid out ranch style home with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a family room as well as a living room. The living areas are "open", which makes the house feel larger than its nearly 1300 square feet. The lot is approximately 6900 SF but it, too, feels larger. There's a 2 car garage and extra room on the side of the home for boat or RV parking.
This property is offered at $889,000.
For more information, please contact Jim Meech at Alain Pinel Realtors: 408-718-3116 or jmeech@apr.com.
(This post is not paid advertising - I simply liked the house & location and wanted to share the info with my readers and hope you find it of interest. -mph)
Looking at homes for sale in Los Gatos? I've compiled a bunch of searches of Los Gatos real estate for sale by price (see a list of homes) and by area (view sections of Los Gatos by map with house icons you can roll over with your mouse to get more details). None of these requires registration.
The first list is broken down by price point for the whole town (sorry, it's not separated by school district, acreage, home size etc. - just price).
The second is a map view of the town's homes on the market. Some areas are fairly large and some are just a particular (popular) subdivision, such as Surrey Farms.
If you are looking at Los Gatos homes for sale online, you've probably noticed that some sites require registration and some don't, and you probably assumed that the information is equally in depth for both. They're actually not the same, though they're close. The more in-depth info can be provided only if someone's registered (it's a legal thing, believe it or not). I believe that school districts are omitted on the non-registered sites, for instance.
I don't like to register to get information and I presume that most of my readers don't, either. So I do have a great variety of ways you can browse homes for sale on my sites, but also do include the sign-in type which delivers info to your email box as it happens. If you want the more detailed info, you can either ask to save your search from one of the above map searches or price searches, or you can go to PopeHandy.com and register for the Private MLS Search.
Are home prices rising in Los Gatos? It does appear that way. What is reported, though, may not be what it seems.
Below are the stats for the closed sales in July - they are still off, year over year, considerably, but they are up from the month before.
Los Gatos Single Family Home Statistics - Closed Sales
Trends At a Glance
Jul 2009
Previous Month
Year-over Year
Median Price
$1,185,000
$1,080,000 (+9.7%)
$1,347,500 (-12.1%)
Average Price
$1,333,290
$1,082,350 (+23.2%)
$1,492,650 (-10.7%)
No. of Sales
28
27 (+3.7%)
26 (+7.7%)
Pending Properties
23
40 (-42.5%)
23 (0.0%)
Active
168
157 (+7.0%)
164 (+2.4%)
Sale vs. List Price
96.0%
95.8% (+0.1%)
98.3% (-2.4%)
Days on Market
62
66 (-6.3%)
31 (+96.8%)
Los Gatos Condominium and Townhouse Statistics - Closed Sales
Trends At a Glance
Jul 2009
Previous Month
Year-over Year
Median Price
$518,000
$635,000 (-18.4%)
$668,000 (-22.5%)
Average Price
$534,806
$615,000 (-13.0%)
$605,600 (-11.7%)
No. of Sales
8
7 (+14.3%)
5 (+60.0%)
Pending Properties
12
9 (+33.3%)
5 (+140.0%)
Active
45
52 (-13.5%)
54 (-16.7%)
Sale vs. List Price
99.2%
95.4% (+4.1%)
95.3% (+4.2%)
Days on Market
86
112 (-23.7%)
44 (+94.9%)
What does it mean?
Clearly, while single family home sold prices are higher than a month ago, this is not the case for condos and townhomes (which have been "beat up" in this market, all over San Jose and also countywide). This is our first clue that "the Los Gatos Market" is again not one unified block, with everyone benefitting equally. Rather, there are micro-markets. Part of the market is advancing strongly - the lower priced homes in the Los Gatos School District - and those homes are selling and appreciating briskly. Other parts of the market, such as the townhouse and condominium market, the luxury market, and the homes not in the Los Gatos school area, are not faring as well. In fact, most homes in Los Gatos are not selling at all, and overall, it is still very much a buyer's market, but it IS improving.
Below, please see a chart displaying the "market barometer" for Los Gatos. NB the gap between the number of properties on the market (168) and those sold (28) - divide the former by the latter to get the "months of inventory", which is 6 months right now. According to the National Association of Realtors, 6 months is a "balanced market" or a "neutral market".
How can this be? How is it possible for it to be a neutral market (or in some segments of Los Gatos, a buyer's market) when prices are rising (and homebuyers are experiencing multiple offers in places)?
It's not happening in every segment of the Los Gatos market, that's how. The homes that are selling are doing well. But many - most - remain unsold.
Broad sweep - here's a view of inventory by Los Gatos zip code (95030 and 95032):
As you can see, inventory is rising among homes in the 95030 part of Los Gatos, but falling among 95032 (often more affordable).
Here's the 95030 zip code area by price quartile:
And here's the 95032 part of Los Gatos by price quartile:
Unfortunately, I cannot break out the school district differential with this subscription, but anecdotal information indicates that homes "in the schools" are the ones selling with multiple offers if they are priced low (close to or under $1 million). So I went to the MLS and checked a few numbers myself.
Right now in 95030 and 95032, there are 47 single family homes for sale in the Campbell Union High School District (meaning Leigh High & Westmont High), and 4 closed sales of the same in the last month. That is an 11.75 month supply of inventory.
Right now in 95030 and 95032 there are 159 single family homes for sale in the Los Gatos-Saratoga High School District, with 28 closed sales in the last month, which is a 5.67 month supply of inventory.
Price point aside, the school district is the driving force.
List prices by zip code in Los Gatos:
Prices are rising more in the 95032 part of Los Gatos than in the less-affordable 95030 part of town. Knowing what we do about the months of inventory, what we see are that the most affordable homes with the schools are the "hot" segment of the market.
What homes are these? The ones where a buyer can get into a single family home for close to a million dollars or less (up to about 1.3 mil max) and enjoy the Los Gatos Schools. Even so, houses must be "turnkey" and priced aggressively.
Homes outside of this parameter - which is most of the Los Gatos real estate market - are struggling.
Please contact me for help in buying or selling a home anywhere in Los Gatos.
Every couple of weeks I get a phone call or an email from someone who wants to get a "cheap" home in Los Gatos by finding a bank owned house or condo, or a short sale, here in town. Real estate prices in Silicon Valley have fallen substantially due to foreclosed homes, but the areas primarily impacted are the least expensive neighborhoods, not the most expensive ones.
So let's have a look at the numbers. The chart below is data gleaned by me this morning from MLSListings.com, our mls provider.
Currently for sale, available
Available
Avail Short Sales
Avail REOs
% Normal Sales
Santa Clara County SFH
2871
584
214
72.20%
Santa Clara County Condos & TH
915
252
71
64.70%
Los Gatos & Monte Sereno SFH
201
14
5
90.55%
Los Gatos & MS Condos & TH
51
4
0
92.16%
Sold & Closed within last 30 days
Sold
Sold Short Sales
Sold REOs
% Normal Sales
Santa Clara County SFH
1707
229
522
56.00%
Santa Clara County Condos & TH
362
47
123
53.04%
Los Gatos & Monte Sereno SFH
33
2
0
93.94%
Los Gatos & MS Condos & TH
9
1
0
88.89%
The majority of homes selling & closing in Santa Clara County are "regular" or non-distressed sales and in Los Gatos (as in other high-end areas), the percentage of short sales and bank owned properties are very low.
Bottom line: while there are some very good deals to be found in Los Gatos &Monte Sereno (as well as in Almaden,and Sarato, there are not a lot of foreclosures to buy and prices have not dropped so dramatically in these areas as in other parts of Silicon Valley.
How's the Los Gatos housing market now and over the last two years? The "supply and demand" graph gives a good visual clue as to the challenge of selling in this corner of SiliconValley. Relative to what's on the market, only a few Los Gatos homes are selling. (Charts and data per Clarus Matrix, a perk of our MLS and real estate board.)
Pricing (or "home value") is perhaps the most important thing to home owners. "What's my home worth?" is the question. Prices are improving in some segments of the market - homes "in the schools" and under about 1 million are in very high demand and that may be pushing prices upward.
The "months of inventory" or absorption rate indicates how long it would take Los Gatos homes for sale to be absorbed by buyers if homes continued to sell at the current rate per month and no new inventory came on the market. (Less than 6 months is a sellers market, more than 6 a buyers market.)
The chart below would have us thinking that the sellers are very happy and that homes are fying off the market - the first chart, though, tells the broader picture of supply & demand. What IS happening, then? Some Los Gatos homes in some prices are selling really well, but many others languish.
Inventory is now declining. This is more acute in some price points and school districts than others, but overall, the available supply of Los Gatos real estate for sale is now noticeably less than at the peak.
The average days on market for Los Gatos homes for sale has jumped around quite a bit. We do seem to be past the peak - but with so much "up & down", it's hard to be sure. Let's hope that the worst is behind us.
A look at all the charts collectively would seem to indicate that although the market is tough on sellers and great for buyers overall, as a whole the town may have already hit its bottom. We won't know unless things are stable and continue improving for another year or so. And, of course, this is "general information" for our town. Your particular neighborhood could be behaving very differently since micro markets are very important here. Please call or email me for information on your particular market.
A blog about Los Gatos real estate, homes, houses, condos, townhomes, housing market, neightborhoods, history, events, businesses, parks, schools, photos, issues, and lifestyle.
Mary Pope-Handy
Realtor, CRS, ABR, SRES, E-PRO
Luxor Real Estate Group
Mailing Address for Mary: PO Box 440 Los Gatos, CA 95031-0440
877 397-5391 (office/toll-free)
A couple of weeks ago I was introducing some buyer clients of mine to various neighborhoods in Los Gatos and Cambrian Park to give them a general feel for the area, real estate prices, home styles, and so on. 
As you can see from the photo above,this house enjoys the proximity of many beautiful, large trees. It is a lovely setting. Inside, it's evident that the owner has updated and remodeled the home - the kitchen is beautiful and features slab granite countertops, for instance. The layout is nice, with both a living room and a family room. Finally, a major plus of this home and neighborhood is unseen: this property enjoys the highly regarded Los Gatos School District.
Details on 208 Las Miradas Drive:
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