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. 3, 2008
How is the Los Gatos real estate market doing?
For many homesellers in Los Gatos (and Silicon Valley generally), and for their Realtors, the real estate market is extremely challenging right now. Buyers have been wary for many months already, but now they're concerned about a recession and job losses, not just the possibility of a real estate sales price that won't hold its value later. It is a deepening buyers market overall, but especially within the market for single family homes.
So what is happening with Los Gatos home sales?
Inventory is rising among single family homes and condos and townhomes. Right now there are 197 single family homes for sale (it was over 200 last week) and 44 condominiums or townhomes. A year ago, it was 113 houses and 23 condos. A month ago it was 184 SFH and 45 condos, and a year ago October it was 104 SFH and 22 condos.
Sales were down in October. We had a surge of sales in September, but then the meltdown on Wall Street happened and buyers put on the brakes. In Oct 2007 there were 12 condos closed, but in Oct 2008 just 9 (and with far more inventory). In Oct 2007 there were 17 houses closed, but in Oct 2008 just 13 (and again, more inventory).
 The real estate market in Los Gatos is mixed, depending on the type of housing (house, townhouse, mulit family dwelling, mobile home or other), the price point (entry level vs luxury), zip code, school district, and more. Of the 13 homes that closed last month, 3 were over $3 million. Surprisingly, 5 were under $1 million. Most often, the vast majority of sales is between $1 million and $2 mil or $2,5 mil, but the middle seems to be shrinking now. It's a strange phenomena! Low priced homes are being bought because, I believe, buyers can "get into Los Gatos" at great prices. The luxury home market is often independent of financing, so those homes are still selling fairly well (despite the loss of stock value in Google and Apple) for now. The middle price range, which often represents move-up buyers who do need at least some financing, appears to be the most impacted market right now.
Condos vs Houses: Which Are Selling Better in Los Gatos?
The Los Gatos condo market, which was really struggling earlier this year, has been improving since May. The Los Gatos single family home market, though, is the opposite: it has been worsening steadily since May. The condo market is very small compared to the single family home market, though, so the overall picture is a deepening of the buyers market in Los Gatos.
Below, please find a bar graph that makes these trends clear:
The Los Gatos real estate market is made up of many micromarkets. For information on your particular home buying or home selling needs in Los Gatos, please contact me today.
Oct. 25, 2008
Several of my buyers have recently decided to hold off until things calm down with the economy. So I wondered if this was widespread or not. Tonight I checked the sales in Los Gatos (zips 95030 and 95032) for the period of 10/1 - 10/25 this year and last year. Sales are slower than last month but still ahead of last year, generally.
Among single family homes in Los Gatos, there have been 15 homes that went sale pending in that time frame this year, wheras there were 8 last year. For condos and townhomes it was 4 this year and 5 last year - close enough to not be significant in my opinion.
Right now, it does not look terribly bad. Sales are mostly ahead of last year at this same time. That said, we'll know more when ALL the factors are in - price points, list price to sales price ratio, days on market, etc.
Oct. 12, 2008
I have never followed the stock market so much as I have in the last two weeks. [My primary concern is my kids' 529 college savings plan, where the money is all in an index fund (that's how CA has it set up).]And I wondered if Los Gatos home buyers have their downpayments in stocks and may also be holding back, so I took a look at very recent sales data to see if there are any new trends.
From my initial study of the pending sales in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno in the 95030 and 95032 zip codes, it does not appear that a slowdown in buying is happening over & above what we were already experiencing prior to the roller coaster ride on Wall Street.
| sales initiated |
Houses |
Condos |
| 10/1/2008 - 10/11/2008 |
7 |
3 |
| 10/1/2007 - 10/11/2007 |
7 |
3 |
| 09/20/2008 - 09/30/2008 |
4 |
5 |
| 09/20/2007 - 09/30/2007 |
4 |
4 |
It may be that we will see a change in the Los Gatos real estate market that later we'll attribute to the financial catastrophe that is going on, but right now, I'm not seeing it. Perhaps the Los Gatos and Monte Sereno home buyers have their downpayment readily accessible in cash. (That is the case with my buyers.)
Oct. 7, 2008
The Los Gatos real estate market for single family homes is a bit of a mixed bag, with some indicators more positive than others, but on the whole, it's a deepening buyers market.
Below, please see the basic sales data on the closed single family homes in Los Gatos for September 2008. Note that saes are up, but days on market are longer, prices are mostly down (except the year over year average sp), and the list price to sales price ratio is dropping.
| Trends At a Glance |
Sep 2008 |
Previous Month |
Year-over Year |
| Median Price |
$1,205,000 |
$1,389,980 (-13.3%) |
$1,280,000 (-5.9%) |
| Average Price |
$1,609,960 |
$1,669,850 (-3.6%) |
$1,346,230 (+19.6%) |
| No. of Sales |
27 |
22 (+22.7%) |
17 (+58.8%) |
| Active |
170 |
138 (+23.2%) |
106 (+60.4%) |
| Sale vs. List Price |
94.9% |
96.5% (-1.7%) |
97.6% (-2.8%) |
| Days on Market |
71 |
51 (+39.0%) |
44 (+61.3%) |
A good way to judge the market overall is by crunching the numbers to get the months of inventory (or days, or weeks of inventory), also known as the absorption rate. Next, please view the Los Gatos area (including Monte Sereno and some parts of Cambrian Park and possibly Campbell) known as "area 16" in our MLS. This lines up almost exactly with Los Gatos and the zip codes 95032 and 95030:
.jpg)
As you can well see, it is going to take more and more time to sell off the current inventory of single family homes in the Los Gatos area. In fact, it is a strong trend that the buyers market has been deepening. The National Association of Realtors says that 6 months or less is a sellers market, but more than 6 months is a buyers market. We had a little dip in May through July where the sellers were under that threshold, but for the most part, it has not been much of a year for sellers in Los Gatos.
In most times, it's very challenging for buyers to purchase a home in Los Gatos as there are often multiple offers and high demands from the sellers. Buyers, now is your chance to get in at a reasonable time! Sellers, if you want to sell, make your home gorgous and price it competitively!
To learn more, please visit my Real Estate Report online, an interactive monthly report that provides information for all of Santa Clara County, including Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Almaden Valley, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, etc., and separated by single family homes and condominiums and townhomes.
 
Aug. 11, 2008
The numbers are out for July's sales activity in Los Gatos!
To the left, please see a graph for prices and sales of single family homes in the Town of Los Gatos. Note that sales prices, both median and average, are slipping, while the number of homes sold has been rising. This is welcome news for sellers.
With the Los Gatos condominium or townhouse market, things are less positive for sellers, but a great opportunity for buyers. (This is very much the situation in the Saratoga and Almaden Valley markets too - the luxury condo market is having a far harder time than the single family home market.) Prices are down and the number of homes selling is down also. Please see graph below.
Please visit my online Silicon Valley Real Estate Report to see much more data for the Town of Los Gatos or any other part of Silicon Valley's real estate market. Visitors to the site can navigate to view statistics and graphs for condominiums and townhomes or single family homes by region.
As always, the real estate market is comprised of many "micro markets", so please contact me for specific information on your particular home or neighborhood.
Mary Pope-Handy
Aug. 4, 2008
What's the housing market in Los Gatos doing in these final weeks of summer? How's the real estate business in Los Gatos faring amid all the doom and gloom of the mortgage implosion? Are Los Gatos homes selling?
Anecdotally, I can tell you that lenders have tightened up their requirements, sales are down and buyers are pickier than ever. Buyers are waiting for prices to come down more for most homes (except the totally remodeled ones which are priced extremely competitively). Many sellers are not willing to sell in the current climate, so the local Los Gatos inventory is not terribly high. Some homes, then, are still selling with multiple offers, while others remain unsold.
Below, please see first the pricing, by quartile, of single family homes in Los Gatos. (These are list prices, not sold prices.)
The first graph reflects the 95030 zip code, which is entirely in the Los Gatos School District.
The following graph displays list prices of single family homes within the 95032 zip code. Much of this zip code is not in the Los Gatos School District, but some of it is.
Next, please see the information for pricing of condominiums and townhomes in the town of Los Gatos, again by both zip code and by quartile.
Here's the report for townhouses and condos in Los Gatos by quartile for 95030.
And here's the same report but for the 95032 zip code:
Below please find reports based on listing prices by zip code and home type (single family or condo/townhome) as well as by zip code. The beginning of the reports will appear the same for both zip codes (95030 and 95032) but go deeper into the report and you will see the neighborhood stats, which are different than those of the town as a whole.
(1) Single family homes in Los Gatos 95032
(2) Single family homes in Los Gatos 95030
(3) Condos and townhomes in Los Gatos 95032
No report for condominiums and townhouses in Los Gatos 95030 - not enough info to generate a report.
Please let me know if you'd like to discuss your particular situation with me in person, by email, or over the phone.
Best regards,
Mary Pope-Handy
Keller Williams
Feb. 15, 2008
A few days ago, I did a post about the biggest, most common mistakes sellers make that cause their homes to not sell. The # 1 error is overpricing, and often that's connected with hiring an agent who tells you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear (or sometimes it's the agent not understanding the market and accidentally misguiding the owner).
Are prices rising or falling in Los Gatos? Both! It depends on what part of town, what price point, what school district, you are considering. We don't have just "one market". It is imperative to understand the micro-markets to get the pricing right.
So let's look at "the market" and "the markets". Let's have a look at the information that homeowners are using to determine how to price their Los Gatos (or Saratoga, or San Jose) home. Below, see a general view of the "Los Gatos Real Estate Market" for single family homes (very broad, including two zip codes and even more school districts). This is relating to list price, not sold prices.
Would this help you to understand pricing trends? To a degree, yes it would.
But it would also add a lot of insight to see how the market is performing within zip codes:
As you can see, there is a vast difference in performance between the town as a whole and the 95032 zip code.
.jpg)
What is going on here? Clearly, the 95030 part of town shows rising list prices, while offered amounts in 95032 have been falling. The zip codes are a little different demographically, with 95030 being more expensive and being all within the prized Los Gatos School District. Some of 95032 is in that same district, but some is assigned to the Union School District or the Moreland School District. (Unfortunately my data is not available by schools.)
Another point to consider is the pricing range. Here's a view of Los Gatos single family homes by listed price quartiles:
The town overall appears to be "flat". But is the market really flat?
And let's see again the quartiles, but this time broken out by zip code:
In 95032 you see a distinct slide in the 2 middle percentiles especially, but also in the lowest range of homes.
Now let's see how things look in 95030:
In contrast, pricing are rising across the board in the 95030 area. The highest cost homes have suffered the most volatility in the market.
For months, we've heard that we have a "bifurcated market" here in Silicon Valley. We know that homes in east San Jose, south San Jose, and south county are under a huge oppression of short sales and foreclosures. Prices have fallen dramatically. At the same time, homes in Palo Alto and areas closest to it are experiencing a strong sellers market. Los Gatos does not have a ton of short sales or foreclosures, but it does have both a buyers market and a sellers market all at the same time.
The above chart looks like there isn't much movement, just a slow and gradual upward push...but have a peek along the quartile lines and you'll see it's not really flat. Here's a view of the 1st quartile of each zip code over the last year (I'm not going to run all 4 here, contact me if you want more info about a different price point):
and ...
If a home is "in the schools" and has no issues (like high voltage lines, train tracks, busy road, or a disfunctional floorplan), and if it's priced between one and two and a half million and is priced appropriately, marketed well etc, there's a good chance it's going to receive multiple offers.
If a home is NOT in the Los Gatos School District, prices are falling and buyers are probably waiting rather than buying in most neighborhoods.
To complicate matters, we have very few solds to use as comparable properties. If agents and sellers are using "comps" from 6 or 9 months ago (when the last similar home sold), they might be too low in 95030 and too high in 95032 (mostly along school lines, in my experience). It is imperative to adjust for market conditions. For example, if a home was worth $1,500,000 last March (since the charts begin there), it has possibly swung up or down in value by $100,000 to $200,000 depending on the area of town.
Warning: if you are in an area where prices are falling and you list your home too high, you may experience the unpleasant phenomena of "chasing the market down". A Realtor friend of mine from Long Beach, Laurie Manny, did a post on this topic that I highly recommend: "Chasing the Market Down - Are You Guilty?"
What is the market in your area of town doing? I would welcome feedback. Are homes selling, and if so, are they going fast? Are they "just sitting" and taking price reductions? What do you see happening in your area, with your type of property? Feedback is posted immediately - please chime in!
(Coming soon - a similar post on condos and townhomes in Los Gatos.)
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