Los Gatos, California
Los Gatos real estate, neighborhoods, condos, houses, homes, market trends, history, events, lifestyle, parks, events, businesses, home, Mary Pope-Handy
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Nov. 14, 2008
The Silicon Valley real estate market is very much in the buyer's favor right now; in Los Gatos, San Jose, Saratoga, Campbell and elsewhere in Santa Clara County, most homes are not selling at all or only selling after a long time on the market and with several painful price reductions. Prices are falling, year over year, in most of the valley - Monte Sereno appears to be the only possible exception.
 That said, some homes are selling just the same. In Los Gatos, there are 248 houses and condos currently for sale. In the last month in 95032 and 95030, 21 houses and condos have closed escrow and 23 have gone sale pending in the same timeframe. So the percentage of homes selling is a little under 10%.
The question to ask yourself, if you want to sell your home right now, is "what does it take to sell my Silicon Valley home in today's market?" You might also ask "how can I get the most money for my home in this market?" What will it take to sell fast and for the best price this market will bear when only ten percent of listed homes are selling in Los Gatos? (It is worse in many other parts of the valley.)
1. Begin By Understanding Market Conditions and Pricing Realities for Your Neighborhood
To maximize your position, it is imperative to begin by understanding today's Silicon Valley real estate market and the real estate market in your home's neighborhood. For years we have experienced a seller's market in which every time a home sold, everyone else's home rose in value. We could price a little high and the market would catch up sooner or later. But not now.
Now, instead, prices are declining and one of the most important things for Los Gatos home sellers to understand is that they need to get ahead of the curve in pricing and be swift to adjust to changing conditions. (Cyberhomes.com puts the Los Gatos 95030 zip code as having lost 5% since last month and 95032 as having lost 3% since last month.)
 Two kinds of homes seem to be selling now: completely remodeled homes which are priced well, or homes needing updating and remodeling that are priced at rock-bottom numbers, possibly even below current market value. Average homes with average prices are not selling. Homes priced in the bottom 10-20% are selling. These are the "shiny pennies". They are the homes in which owners understand that "it's a beauty contest and a price war".
There are several places online where you can get real estate market trends in Silicon Valley as well as home values calculated online. These are automatically generated and do not involve an agent's input. Among them are these:
Silicon Valley Real Estate Report - Recent Listing & Sales Activity (view by map, no registration)
Cyberhomes.com
Zillow.com
Because precise home valuations involve things that online estimators can't factor in (like school district, the presence of power lines, proximity to positive or negative things), your best bet will be to talk with a knowledgeable and experienced Realtor, who will factor in current market conditions for your exact neighborhood and type of home (historic, view property, etc.).
(To read more on pricing, please read this article on my main website: Pricing Your Silicon Valley Home Competitively and also Benefits of Realistic Pricing.)
2. Clean, Declutter, and Stage Your Silicon Valley Home to Sell
Buyers respond most favorably to homes in which they can see themselves. Too many of your personal effects and it's hard for them to see themselves living there. Getting your home sold today requires depersonalizing "your home" and making attractive and easy for buyers to see as "their home".
.jpg) Most of us live in a somewhat cluttered way in our homes and yards, and thinning out the extra stuff that won't help to sell your home can be difficult both physically and emotionally. If you hire a good agent early on, he or she will assist you in knowing what is best to keep out and what's best to remove for selling.
Also during this stage, you'll want to get your home and garden into good shape, whether it's sprinklers that aren't working or windows that won't open. Clean and fix!
Sometimes getting through this stage can be overwhelming. Perhaps you'd like a hand? A resource I have used many times is "At Your Service", a concierge service at no cost to you. Karin Doll-Nichols runs this helpful company and she can hook you up with a handyman, a landscape person, someone to assist you in downsizing, you name it. My experiences with At Your Service have been very positive, and the prices are competitive too.
(For more information on this topic, please read Staging Your Silicon Valley Home, an article on my main website.)
3. Pre-Sale Inspections Are The Norm in the West Valley Communities of Silicon Valley
If you are serious about selling you home in Los Gatos or anywhere in Silicon Valley, it's important to also do pre-sale inspections. Depending on what type of home you have (condo, townhome, single family home or large estate), you could need anywhere from two inspections to perhaps a half dozen of them. Most sellers will need to have a pest (or termite) inspection and a home (or property) inspection. (For more information on inspections, please see my post on another blogsite of mine, What Kinds of Inspections and Reports Are Needed For Buying and Selling Homes in Silicon Valley? )
Home inspections often uncover surprises and having pre-sale inspections will enable you to repair or replace defective items, or if they are items you do not want to fix, at least give you the knowledge to counter defects out of any offers that come in. My suggestion is to allow a couple of extra weeks, at least, to do any unplanned repairs prior to the home going on the market. Buyers today are picky but they will write stronger offers if they know the condition of the home they want to buy, and stronger offers still if they feel that any issues are already resolved.
The quality of inspectors you hire can impact your transaction greatly, so I strongly advise that you hire your agent first and get recommendations on good inspectors prior to getting an inspector involved. Good Realtors know many inspectors by reputation or through past dealings and can assist you in hiring those who are reputable, honest, and fair.
Finally. . .
It will be helpful to view things with the buyers perspective to understand what makes them choose one home and leave nine others behind. As a seller, view your property as being in competition with the rest of the homes. Ask yourself which home would you choose? Which one is the best value?
There are many important issues to tackle in order to not just sell your home, but to sell it for top dollar in the current market. Today we've addressed the initial areas only - this is just the starting point! Perhaps the best thing you can do is get educated about the process and then hire well. There are hundreds of agents in close proximity so there's no shortage of choice. You can afford to take your time and be picky about selecting an agent who is knowledgeable, experienced, accessible and who will represent you well every step of the way.
 If you would like to discuss selling your Silicon Valley home, please call or email me for a free, no cost, one hour consultation. My book, "Get the Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silcon Valley", is my gift to you when you meet with me. It's a highly helpful resource that can get you started in selling your home.
Sep. 8, 2008
The Los Gatos real estate market struggled this summer. Noticeably declining prices were required to effect home sales in some price points, in which it seemed as though housing prices dropped quite sharply and rapidly. Please see www.PopeHandy.ReReport.com for a full interactive report on Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, San Jose, Campbell, and all of Silicon Valley.
There are a number of ways of gauging the real estate market in Los Gatos. We'll look at several of them to get a sense of what's happening.
A particularly accurate method of learning how the real estate market is performing can be obtained by studying the absorption rate. That's the rate at which the current inventory of available homes would be absorbed, or bought up, if no new listings came on the market. Below please have a look at the months of inventory, or absorption rate, for single family homes in Los Gatos since August 2007. NB that shorter months means it's more in the sellers' favor, and longer is more in the buyers' favor. (The National Association of Realtors says that longer than 6 months is a buyers' market.)
As the numbers indicate, it got harder to sell as the summer months progressed. May (reflecting April sales) was the best month since December. So homes listed May and later were challenged by comps that made the situation appear more rosey than it was in reality. (Graph created by Mary Pope-Handy using MLSListings.com data.)
Below, please find a "Market Barometer", care of the Real Estate Report, to which I subscribe, for the town of Los Gatos.
By this accounting, too, April and May were the better time of the year for selling in 2008, and prior to that it was the summer of 2007 before there was a really strong looking Los Gatos real estate market. And a glance over all the years shown reveals that 2005 was a great year for selling homes in Los Gatos.
Next, let's look at median prices in Los Gatos - both 95030 and 95032 - and also Monte Sereno, since it's so close geographically. This chart is from Altos Research, and is another subscription service I have, but instead of closed prices, this reflects asking or list prices. It is interesting to see that Monte Sereno fared the best and the 95032 part of Los Gatos (which generally is less expensive than 95030) the worst, with 95030 right in the middle. The wealthier the area, the better it seemed to do by list price in the last year. And that makes sense as the higher priced homes are less dependent on loans.
Next, let's view the Days on Market in the same three areas: Los Gatos 95030, Los Gatos 95032, and Monte Sereno (which is also 95030). All three follow the same general trends, though Monte Sereno (the green line) swings higher and lower than the two zip codes in Los Gatos. Interestingly, the 95032 zip code decreases its days on the market in recent weeks while the other two areas continue their upward climb. (Again, based on active listings in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, not closed sales.)
Next, let's review inventory. Here we see that the inventory is rising recently.
Once again, Monte Sereno is the healthiest - it has the lower levels of inventory that correspond to lower days on the market and a higher median price.
Since it appears, from this data, that much of "how the market is doing" appears to be by price point, let's break out the data by median list price quartile within each area.
Los Gatos, 95030
Los Gatos, 95032
Monte Sereno, 95030
The highest priced markets are showing the most change during these months and the lowest priced homes are far more flat in the two parts of Los Gatos than in Monte Sereno.
Overall, list prices are fairly flat (looking at all markets in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno) - nothing really dramatic has happened here in the last 3 months for the majority of Los Gatos homes. Overally, days on market are rising. And overall, inventory is rising.
All of these point to a market which is increasingly a buyers' market, and this idea is strongly reinforced by the very first graph, which displays the absorption rate (for all of Los Gatos).
The glimmer of hope in the broader market comes from the fact that the number of sales is rising countywide for the second month in a row afte 46 solid months of declining sales. It could be that this is the bottom of the market - and the very most ideal time to buy. If this is the case, we'll see improvement in these numbers for Los Gatos in the next few months.
Furthermore, trends that may impact one part of Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, or anywhere else in Silicon Valley may not be of direct consequence elsewhere in Santa Clara County. A quick look at the REReport shows that Palo Alto, Cupertino and other areas are quite strong, despite a high number of foreclosures in South San Jose. So, too, with Los Gatos. What happens in Blossom Manor, Surrey Farms, the Edelen District, or the Almond Grove District may have little to bear with things that happen in the hills behind La Hacienda, new townhomes off Winchester Blvd, older condos on Los Gatos Almaden Road, or the comfortable ranch homes near Quito Road. And all of them are a different market than the large homes on Santa Rosa Drive, Aztec Ridge, or Matiliaja.... Because the real estate market here is a collection of micro markets, it's important to ALSO get information on your exact neighborhood and type of home and property (view, equestrian, vineyard, something in the Williamson Act) if you are in the market for buying or selling.
Please call or email me if I can be of help to you in buying or selling your home here in the Los Gatos area.
Mary Pope-Handy
cell 204-7673
mary@popehandy.com
May. 9, 2008
Los Gatos Home Sales Trends
How's the real estate market in the Town of Los Gatos? The Los Gatos housing market varies from one price point and neighborhood to the next, from one type of housing to the next, and even between the town's two zip codes, 95030 and 95032. Here we'll take a view of the overall movement in the market; please understand that it may or may not apply to your Los Gatos home so please call or email me for specific information relating to your property.
Overall, Los Gatos continues to be a buyer's market, though not as deep as in other places in Santa Clara County. Inventory is rising in both single family homes and in condos/townhomes, which is a typical trend for this time of year.
The market has improved somewhat over a month ago in terms of median and average sales price (the graphs below use a 12 month moving average, but the actual numbers do show an uptick). To view the report for Los Gatos using the actual numbers rather than the moving average, please have a look at my new online Real Estate Report. Below are links to specific pages within it that are most relavent to the readers of this blog:
(1) Single Family homes in Los Gatos
(2) Condos and Townhomes in Los Gatos
(3) The Monte Sereno Real Estate Market (SFH, not enough condos for April report)
(4) Single Family Homes in Saratoga
(5) Condos and Townhomes in Saratoga
(6) Single Family Homes in Almaden Valley
(7) Condominiums and Townhouses in Almaden Valley
How about general trends, using moving averages, in the real estate market for the Town of Los Gatos?
The following chart shows median and average price trends plus sales. The chart uses a 12-month moving average to eliminate any seasonal variation.
The next chart is the same as above but uses a 3-month moving average. This smoothes out month-to-month variations yet shows seasonal variations. Here, you can see the uptick in the number of homes sold in Los Gatos.
This chart shows the current inventory of Los Gatos single family homes for sale compared to the number that have sold in the town.
The next series of charts shows the same thing as above but for condominiums and town homes in the Town of Los Gatos.
Please call or email me for specific information on your particular situation
in Los Gatos or anywhere in Silicon Valley.
May. 2, 2008
It remains a buyer's market in Los Gatos, but not as deep a buyer's market as in many other parts of Silicon Valley.
Below please find links to reports on the local Los Gatos housing market, broken down by zip code and housing type, current as of April 28, 2008. One of the most helpful aspects of the Altos reports is that it breaks the activity down by market quartiles, so that the activity in entry level homes, for instance, is differentiated from the luxury home market. Have a look:
Los Gatos Single Family Homes in 95030
Los Gatos Single Family Homes in 95032
Los Gatos Condos and Townhomes in 95030
Los Gatos Condos and Townhomes in 95032
These are care of Altos Research, which uses list prices (rather than sales prices). In a week or so we'll have the data on solds in Los Gatos from April, care of another subscription I have, the Real Estate Report. Please check back soon to get that information.
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