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.

In addition to doing a post comparing Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and Saratoga today, I also did one on just the Monte Sereno real estate market in my other blog at ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com. If you are tracking the Monte Sereno housing market, please have a look at this article, which discusses the days on market, inventory level, percentage of homes relisting, and pricing trends.  Find it on the ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com site or click directly on this link:

Monte Sereno: How’s the Market?

As noted many times in this blog about Los Gatos real estate, the market is varied from one price point and school district, among other things, to the next.

The homes in the lowest price points and "in the schools" seem to be selling faster.  For today's view into the market, let's consider homes in Los Gatos, with Los Gatos Schools, with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, priced at under $1,500,000.

The days on market or "DOM" for all pendings is a misleading number of almost 100 days. If the average DOM is 100, buyers can take their time, right?

But let's have a closer look and sort the results. If we pull the data apart by the date of the sale (when buyers and sellers agreed on price and terms), a different picture of the market emerges. The average DOM now is 1/3 of what it was for the current pendings PRIOR to June 1st!

While some homes are not selling too fast, the pace appears to be quickening dramatically. It may be awhile before this is seen in the sold data, but it's very much a "real time" snapshot of the market activity now.

Sellers, if you get your home into great shape and price it aggressively, you may be able to sell your home so fast that it will shock your neighbors.

Buyers, if you are trying to purchase a home that falls into this segment, it's important to see homes that interest you quickly now, since they may not last a week or two.

If you'd like more information on data pertaining to your home or the type of home you'd like to buy, please contact me.  We can set up a meeting and go over the information that matches your own situation.

(Numbers by our MLS, MLSListings.com. Data exported, sorted and crunched by Mary Pope-Handy.)

The Los Gatos real estate market varies by zip code, school district, neighborhood and price point.

The schools are a huge factor in sales prices and overall desireability, even if the buyers want to have their kids attend private schools. So let's consider that imact too. The 95030 zip code is entirely in the Los Gatos School District, but the 95032 zip code is partly "in the schools" and partly in the Campbell Union High School District. The 95033 zip code reflects the Los Gatos Mountain areas (such as Redwood Estates, Chemeketa Park, etc.), which are not actually part of the town but have a Los Gatos mailing address. The schools in the mountains are quite good and they feed into Los Gatos High School.

I. Overview:  Today we'll first have a broad overview of the major real estate indicators across 95030, 95032, and 95033, then focus in on pricing by zip code in particular.

1.) Here's a snapshot of how the Los Gatos real estate market is faring by zip code and major indicators. First, let's look at the median list price of single family homes in these zip codes:

The median list price is clearly declining across all zip codes.

2.) And here's the inventory situation by zip code in Los Gatos, which as you can see hit a peak a month or two ago but has been declining recently:

3.) Finally, here is a view of the days on market in the same three parts of Los Gatos:

II. Pricing Information by zip code and quartile.

1.) The days on market are rising across all zip codes and the ratio appears fairly similar from one to the next.

2.) Next, the same data for 95032:

3.) And lastly the same information for the mountain areas of 95033:

Generally speaking

-the inventory is not as high as a few months ago and appears to be enjoying a downward trend.

-days on the market are climbing overall

-median list price has been falling - in some areas and price points, it's not terribly dire, but in others the situation is more extreme.

Overall, the market continues to deteriorate for sellers and improve for buyers. Any particular home may or may not fit neatly into the patterns shared above, so please contact me for more information on your home or your dream home!

We'll get the exact, hard data for the Los Gatos real estate market in a week or so from MLSListings.com, our MLS provider (formerly known as REInfolink). Meanwhile, though, we can have a look at the closings reported to date and get a feel for how the market is doing.

This month, there were 29 closings, or completed sales, in the town of Los Gatos (zip codes 95030 and 95032) among single family homes and condos/townhomes. Of the 29 Los Gatos homes which sold, 24 were single family homes and 5 were condominiums or townhouses. I was involved in two of those sales - one as the listing agent and one as the selling agent (working with the buyers), both single family homes that were in the $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 price range, and both are in the Los Gatos School District.

How did they homes in Los Gatos do in August?

First, let's look at single family homes. One sold "off" the MLS, so it's hard to know how it might have done on the open market. It was extreme in another way - it sold at $5,400,000 - the most expensive closing of the month. Not your typical Los Gatos price, though not unheard of either.

For single family homes in Los Gatos,  the multiple listing service, the average "days on market" was 50 and average "collective" or "cumulative days on market" was 71. So typically, it's taking 71 days for houses to sell in Los Gatos. (My listing, which was on Magneson Terrace, took 66 days to sell - felt much longer for everyone involved, though!) Some homes sold fast (1-10 days) and a few a very long time (longest was 238 days), but most are in the 2-3 month range.

The average list price was $1,915,500 and the average sales price was $1,847,989 among Los Gatos houses. The lowest home sold for $870,000 and the highest for $5,400,000, as mentioned above. Fifteen sold between $1 million and $2 million, 3 below that range and 6 above it

Only 3 of the 24 sold higher than list price. Just 4 sold "at" list price (but of those, 2 were reduced before they sold at list price, so only 2 sold at the original list price) and the vast majority had one or more price reductions prior to selling.

What about townhouses and condos in Los Gatos? There were only five spread between two zip codes which are so far reported as closed in August. Of those, the average Days on Market is 41 (same number for Collective DOM), the average list price is $687,789 and average sales price $676,000.

So it looks like the condo market is faring better than the single family home market in Los Gatos right now, according to closed sales prices.

While pricing appears to be flat by some indicators in July, we have seen many price reductions in homes that appeared aggressively positioned in the market before offers are procured. Buyers are waiting, generally, and prices do seem to be falling somewhat in the under $2 million price range.

The soft real estate market that has been plaguing much of San Jose and Silicon Valley now appears to be impacting the entry level and mid-level homes in Los Gatos.

What can we expect? With an election year, things are always uncertain. Likewise, the interest rate has threatened to rise a bit and if that happens, it will adversely affect home prices for sellers. Think of it like the scales of justice: one side goes down, the other goes up.

Waiting may or may not be a good idea. Prices may go down and interest rates may go up. Or perhaps not - no one knows. As one of my buyer clients said, recently, "prices may go down, but if I wait, it's like I put my life on hold". (That buyer is now a homeowner.)

The real estate market in Silicon Valley, including Los Gatos, is comrised of many micro-markets. Please call me for specific assistance in the area where you live or would like to live.