Historic Homes Tour in Los Gatos, November 7 and 8, 2009

Reminder:  The homes tour is THIS WEEKEND!  

The highly appreciated Los Gatos Historic Homes Tour will be returning on November 7 - 8, 2009, 10am to 4pm each day.  Seven beautiful Los Gatos homes will be on display, with docents at each home to point out special aspects of the home.

Not only are the homes lovely to see, but it's a fabulous way to get a taste of the history of Los Gatos.  I highly recommend this event, particularly to folks new to the town!

Tickets are $35 per person.  Learn more at www.MuseumsOfLosGatos.org. Proceeds go to support the towns two museums (one a history museum, the other an art museum).

Would you like to volunteer to help put it on? You can do that and enjoy a free pass to the homes on tour. 

http://www.museumsoflosgatos.org/HHT_Tour.html

Los Gatos Home Sales

The Los Gatos real estate market is a moving target.  How's it today?  It depends on which part of the data you study.   Days on the market are longer, but prices are up, sales are up, and inventory is down.

Los Gatos Houses

Los Gatos homes sold and Los Gatos homes for sale:  first note that inventory is way down (from 200 a year ago to 134 now), the number of pending houses is up (from 11 to 51) and the medial sales price is up (though the average is down) year over year.  Are homes still slipping in value, or are they appreciating?  The answer to that question depends on a home's particular location, price point, school district, and other factors.  Some homes are still going down in value, but others are rising. The days on market are longer, from 32 DOM to 52.    A lot of indicators are "UP" but it's still not really easy to sell a Los Gatos home today. With 134 actives and just 25 solds, that's a 5.36 months supply of inventory - close to "balanced".  With 51 pendings vs 134 actives, it looks like the odds of selling are about 38% in any given month right now.

Trends At a Glance	Oct 2009	Previous Month	Year-over Year
Median Price	$1,110,000	$1,187,500 (-6.5%)	$975,000 (+13.8%)
Average Price	$1,182,290	$1,152,560 (+2.6%)	$1,465,810 (-19.3%)
No. of Sales	25	22 (+13.6%)	15 (+66.7%)
Pending Properties	51	47 (+8.5%)	11 (+363.6%)
Active	134	143 (-6.3%)	200 (-33.0%)
Sale vs. List Price	96.2%	97.4% (-1.3%)	96.7% (-0.5%)
Days on Market	52	43 (+22.8%)	32 (+64.6%)

To see more data on the single family home sales for October, please see my RE Report for that part of the market.

Los Gatos Condominiums and Townhouses

The Los Gatos townhome and condominium real estate market is likewise better in many ways.  The number of sales is up year over year (9 to 11), pendings are up (5 to 18) and inventory is down from 48 to 37.  Days on the market are longer though, from 33 to 99. So again some mixed indicators.  There's a shift toward more of a sellers market with the months supply of inventory now at 3.36 months.  Condos and townhomes overall are selling much better than they were a year ago in terms of pricing (up substantially over a year ago, though down from last month).  Buyers are more willing to buy now, probably due to fantastic interest rates and perhaps also some of the great first time homebuyer perks such as the $8000 credit.

Trends At a Glance	Oct 2009	Previous Month	Year-over Year
Median Price	$644,000	$741,500 (-13.1%)	$555,000 (+16.0%)
Average Price	$652,136	$752,833 (-13.4%)	$594,222 (+9.7%)
No. of Sales	11	6 (+83.3%)	9 (+22.2%)
Pending Properties	18	15 (+20.0%)	5 (+260.0%)
Active	37	39 (-5.1%)	48 (-22.9%)
Sale vs. List Price	97.1%	99.5% (-2.5%)	97.6% (-0.5%)
Days on Market	99	46 (+116.2%)	33 (+201.4%)

And to get more details on the Los Gatos condo market, please see my RE Report page with that data.

Home Sellers Ask: Why Isn't My Home Selling?

Have you tried to sell your Los Gatos home and not had success? If you listed your home for sale but it did not sell, you are probably tired, frustrated, and feeling skeptical.  Let's look at what is probably happening.

First we'll have a look at the overall landscape for home sellers in the Los Gatos area and look at some numbers.

The numbers below reference "area 16" in our MLS, which includes Los Gatos, a little sliver of San Jose and Campbell, and all of Monte Sereno.  It is meant to give a general sense of the real estate market conditions for the area.  Homes in this post refers to houses, condominiums and townhomes.

Houses, Condos & Townhomes in Area 16
Available (status 1)	191
Pending (status 2-4)	79
Pended sale in last month	46
Sold & closed (status 5)	35
overall months of inventory	5.45
odds a home will sell this month	24%

Sales activity is picking up, as you can see by the larger number of pending sales than closed sales. But please note that not every home under contract will actually close escrow.  Getting your home an accepted offer and getting it "in escrow" is the first hurdle, but not the only one.

The odds are actually against your home selling right now.  In the last month, only 46 homes had accepted offers on them, and there are 191 available in the Los Gatos area.  The ratio - the odds that any given home will sell in the next thirty days is approximately 24%.  So if your home hasn't sold, know that you are not alone.

But what can you do about it?

First, you need to know what the issue is (or what the issues are).  To get a contract on your home, you need a good amount of qualified traffic, approximately 3 to 5 showings per week.  If you have the activity, get feedback from your agent - what are the objections, concerns, and reasons why buyers don't move forward and write an offer?

Usually the problem is in one of a few areas, sometimes a combination of them.  Here they are in order of probability:

• the price is too high
• the home is too difficult to see (restrictive days, hours, arrangements)
• poor condition
• poor cosmetics
• location issues
• seller  or sale issues
• poor marketing

Pricing:

The vast majority of the time, the main issue on homes that don't sell is pricing.  Sellers are sometimes "the highest bidder" on their own home. If your home is probably worth a million dollars to 95% of the buyers, but you list it at $1,400,000, it likely won't sell.  Maybe 2-5% of the buyers will bite, 95% won't and the balance will only buy it at $800,000.  If you are serious about selling, put your pricing strategy in line with the market.  Ask yourself: What is the probable buyer's value?

But I'm not in a hurry!  I don't want to give away my home!  I can wait!

Of course, occassionally a seller can set the price too high and a home will sell.  That is usually a fluke. So is the other extreme, when sellers part with their property at fire sale prices.  If you are truly not in a hurry and want to sell for a certain dollar amount, wait until the market catches up with you. If your home is the most expensive one for homes of its kind, your listing will only guarantee that other homes will sell first - your wil make theirs look like a good deal.

Set realistic expectations with pricing and you will get over most of the reasons why a home won't sell. If the price is truly right, buyers (and their Realtors) can often overlook any other condition or situation.

Restrictive Showings:

How hard is it for a Realtor or other real estate professional to preview or show your home to buyers? Do they need to give a lot of notice? Can they only visit your home on certain days, times, or with an agent present?  The harder it is to see your home, the harder it is for an agent to sell it.

There's a wide variety of showing options.  For ease of showing, best is on the left and worst is on the right.  Where is yours on this continuum? 

Vacant	Call first,	no show	Appt	24 hour	Appt	48 hour	write offer
Go Direct	then go	after 5pm	only through	notice	only through	notice	subject to
		or no show	seller	required	listing agent	required	inspection
		weekends

If your home is not getting traffic, it may be because your home is too hard to see. If possible, consider making your home more accessible.  Remember that buyers usually have jobs and can only see your home on their time off.  For most, that means a showing at an inconvenient time, such as 6pm.  The buyers may or may not have weekends off, so don't presume that they can come on a Saturday or Sunday during an open house. 

It is hard to have your home on the market, especially if you've got kids at home.  With my clients who are selling their home and need to work around the kids' schedules, I usually suggest showings from 10am to 7pm seven days a week.  If we get their home priced, marketed, and under contract within a week or ten days, this is very doable and it enables buyers to come by after work if needed.

Recently some buyers of mine wanted to see a particular home but on weekdays it was only available until 4pm.  They could not get there until 6, so ended up buying another home. 

Remember: if they can't see it, you can't sell it.

Poor Condition, Poor Cosmetics, Odors and Pets:

If your home needs a lot of work, it will scare off most buyers.  In Silicon Valley, home buyers are often working full time (or more) and they usually can't or don't want to take on a home that needs a new kitchen, bathrooms, wiring, repiping, etc.  It's just too disruptive and, frankly, a lilttle scary to the majority of them.  If they do take it on, they will want a steep discount for their trouble and for the "risk" involved.

For instance, if a fully remodeled townhome sells for a million dollars, and it takes about $100,000 to bring an original one up to that level, the buyer won't pay $900,000 for it. No, the buyer will only pay about $800,000, maybe a little more, since he or she will have to do the fixing, live through the mess, and take on the risk that the project is bigger than it seems. 

Cosmetics refers to the minor stuff like paint and carpet - these aren't structural but they certainly do factor in how a buyer feels about the real estate for sale.  Is the home too cluttered? Are there too many personal effects?   It is a common problem and is an easy fix if you are willing - but if not done, can create problems for buyers who simply cannot visualize themselves in an overstuffed home. You need to make it possible for them to mentally move in. They can't do that if your personal photos and stuff is taking up too much of the space.  Remember, too, that you want to make your home appear spacious. If it looks crowded, buyers will not want to buy.

Odors are a common problem too. Smoke? Strong cooking odors? Incense?  Most Los Gatos or San Jose area home buyers will have trouble getting past strong odors because they are afraid that the only way to get the home smelling fresh will be to pull up carpet, replace curtains, etc.  Or that even that won't do the trick.   It is very important to make your home a comfortable place where buyers can linger - get rid of the smells. Do not smoke in your home.  If you have lived and smoked in your home a long time, get your curtains dry cleaned, wash your carpet (or consider replacing it and the pad under it).  Get the smells out!

Pets:

Once I was previewing a Los Gatos home for sale and simply gagged on odors when I entered the bedroom wing.  The sellers had pet bunnies in cages and the smell was terrible.  We have had bunnies too and the smell wasn't like this - the owners simply weren't cleaning the cages enough.  If you have pets, keep them bathed. Clean their bedding and cages often. 

Another time I was previewing a San Jose condo and one of the kids ran up to me and literally shoved a baby snake in my face. Luckily, it didn't freak me out.  But it would scare a lot of buyers.  More often, it's dogs that frighten potential home buyers.  Please make sure that your dogs and other pets are either out of the home or in a run or crated during showings. They frighten some people and will make them hurry out of your home.

You can always compensate for poor condition and cosmetics with an appropriate price, but it is often cheaper for you to fix the problems, such as decluttering, airing out the home, adding a new roof or doing cosmetic (light) remodeling, before putting the home on the market. New paint, carpet, light fixtures, sod and annuals will do wonders for the sales price of a tired looking home.

Location and Neighborhood Issues:

If your home is adjacent to something undesireable, such as high voltage power lines, a grocery store, or is located in a natural hazard zone of some kind (flood plain, earthquake fault zone) or anything else that a buyer may find objectionable, often there's not a lot you can do about it. You usually cannot "fix" too many cars on the street, neighbors who don't maintain their yards or houses, etc.   Sometimes buyers don't want a home because of feng shui issues such as the way the home faces (north, south, east, west).   Maybe they don't want a home that faces a T intersection.

Sometimes, though, you can mitigage the location and neighborhood situation a little. Plant trees and hedges to screen a view of power lines, your neighbor's junker or RV in the driveway. (Yes, some homebuyers will find RVs and boats an eyesore and won't want to live next to them.)  You still have to disclose anything that might bother the buyer, but that doesn't mean they have to see it.

Is it a feng shui issue? Sometimes there are "fixes" that can make whatever problem it is less of one.  Talk to your agent and read up on whatever the item is.

Seller or sale issues:

If it is a short sale, many buyers will simply boycott it because there are too many unknowns - will the bank approve the short sale? Will the sale close?  REOs are abundant but sometimes those homes are stripped - too many things are missing or damaged, so they don't always sell. (The bank owns these, of course, but if you're a neighbor and wondering why a nearby home hasn't sold, that may be the reason.) REOs come without presale inspections or disclosures in most cases.  That raises the risk factor - buyers have too many unanswered questions, and this can also slow down a sale.  I was showing an REO near Valley Fair yesterday and the oddest thing is missing there: heat.  There is simply no heat source at all in the home.  This kind of thing can put off most buyers.

If you have a "seller to find replacement home" contingency, that will also not work for most buyers.

If the seller is always home, or worse, won't leave the buyers to look in peace, that can also scare off buyers.  They need to be left alone so they can see the space and visualize whether their furniture will work, whether or not it will suit the way they live.  When my family and I were homebuying about 10 years ago, one seller followed us all through the home and even into the yard.  He pulled a lawn chair out and moved it so that we were not out of his sight for even a second as we walked around the yard.  To this day, my kids refer to it as "the house where that man kept following us". We didn't buy it, of course. It was creepy.

Poor Marketing:

This is almost never the reason why a home doesn't sell, but on very rare occassions it may be the case.  Sellers often think that the problem is marketing, but a home with the best marketing in the world won't sell if the price is wrong and the home is too hard to see or has other major issues.  But perhaps one home in 200 will have a true marketing problem. 

Marketing problems, in order:

• not enough photos of the home
• photos only of the outside, no views of the major parts inside such as kitchen
• bad photos of cluttered homes, yards, cars in driveway, etc.
• incorrect MLS entry of data, underrepresenting the number of beds, baths, garage etc.
• other MLS or listing issues, visible to the agent community

The #1 marketing culprit is poor photographs of the home, not enough of them, or not making the home look appealing for the photos.  Again, some homes will sell despite lousy pics, but we want to aim at the majority of buyers.  No pic? They'll probably pass on the home.  No view of the kitchen or baths? They'll presume the worst - it must be horrible!

MLS issues do happen. I have seen agents state that a home has a 1 car garage when it has 2, or 1 bath when there are 2, etc.  It is very easy to click the incorrect box, so it is crucial that the agent and the home owner double check and make corrections as soon as the home goes on the MLS.  If the wrong data is listed, your home will miss out on buyers seeing it.

I have to tread lightly on the last point about MLS issues that only agents can see.

Commissions:

Most of the time, buyers do not pay the commission, but it comes out of the sellers' proceeds. There's a variety of commission rates offered to the buyers' agent (it is not fixed by law, of course) but sometimes that figure is so low that it can disincentivize a buyers agent from showing the home.  In the extreme, I once saw a downtown San Jose home with a commission rate of $1 (one dollar).  That will work if the buyers are willing to pay the commission, but usually they don't want to do that.  At the other extreme, sometimes as a marketing angle, sellers will offer a slightly elevated commission rate to increase traffic. 

What I do for my seller clients is to run the mls (with the commissions showing) of the competition & pending sales and download it to an excel spread sheet. I then sort it and check days on market and sales price against with the commissions to give the sellers a sense of what's happening.  I did this a couple of days ago for clients in Willow Glen.  It looked like the average net is almost 1% higher by placing the commission at one point versus another.  This may or may not always be the case - you would have to actually run the data to see.

A few times, I've had hard-to-sell homes and by elevating the commission above the crowd a little bit, increased showings and got the home sold (often when I'm the 2nd or 3rd agent trying to sell a home).  Conversely, if the commission offered to the buyers agent is $1 or on the low end of what's offered in that area, it may hurt traffic.  It is legal to offer any amount - or none, if you are selling by owner - but think of it as a marketing dollar. 

The Problem Sales Agent:

On the most rare of occassions, the real estate salesperson may be the problem. This really is extremely infrequent, but the personality of your sales professional, or his/her reputation, may be what's causing your home to not sell or to sell for less.  This is not a brokerage issue, but your salesperson I'm talking about.  Buyers don't usually know who's who, and they don't care which company has the listing.  But the buyers' agent might know that the listing agent is a difficult person, unreliable, unprofessional, or any other bad combination of things.   Buyer agents may simply try to avoid working with those listing agents if possible.   This is extraordinarily rare - one in several thousand - but it can happen. So before hiring, find out what the agent's reputation is with other Realtors.  We are never supposed to badmouth the competition, so it may be difficult to figure out if your agent is on the very short list of disliked or distrusted agents, but it's worth trying. Your salesperson is part of your package deal, so make sure you hire well.

If you've tried to sell your home but been unsuccessful, the chances are that one of the issues above is the problem.

Conversely, how do you make sure that your home is one of the 24% that does sell?  It is both simple and hard:  hire a good agent, get the price right, get the home into show-ready condition, make the home easy to see, double check for marketing issues or errors (home info, enough pics).  Getting it all right is not easy, but it will greatly increase the odds of your success in selling your home.

If your home is an expired or cancelled listing and you would like to chat about getting it sold, please call or email me. I'd be happy to meet with you and chat about what can be done to get your home sold in today's market.

Halloween Events In and Near Los Gatos in 2009

Halloween is fast approaching, but there are still a few more events in and near Los Gatos to get you into the spirit!

At Oak Meadow Park, once again the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce is putting on the Haunted Halloween Forest and Goblyn's Glen (to benefit the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad and more). For tickets and more information, please call 408-395-7433 or visit Website.  Next two events are Friday and Saturday of this week, from 7 - 10pm.

There are many, many more Halloween events the rest of this week posted on Craigslist. If you click on the link below, it will take you to an extensive collection of Halloween events in Siicon Valley.  Scroll down to

October 26 - 31
 

South Bay:

and there you'll find 22 items listed in San Jose, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Los Altos and all over the south bay.

Happy Halloween!



 

Los Gatos Condos For Sale: How's the Market?

If you are thinking of buying or selling a Los Gatos condo or townhouse, it's helpful to know what the market's doing - that is, what are the Los Gatos real estate trends and statistics for the condo market. 

Today we'll have a look at the Los Gatos condo market in terms of pricing, inventory, and days on market.  We will study Los Gatos as a whole and broken out by zip code,  and also by price quartile too.  The data below is via Altos Research, to which I am a subscriber & so I have the right to use the charts & graphs here. (Note: Altos Research uses list prices, not sold prices.) The charts I'm uploading will automatically update, so if you pull up this post long after it's been written, the charts will still be "live" and should be accurate.

First, the pricing trends for condos and townhomes in 95030 and 95032 combined (so all of Los Gatos together) over the last year, and separated by quartile:

 

Generally, it's been a year of some increases but overall decreases in list prices year over year (as of late October 2009).

Following, the two zip codes separated, but the quartiles combined:

 

Interestingly, the 95030 part of Los Gatos was dropping this time last year (10-2008) while the 95032 market was mostly improving.  I suspect that this is due to the cost of living: 95032 is simply less expensive.

Getting more specific:  now see Los Gatos 95030 condos and townhomes, broken out by price quartile:

 

Fascinating to see what happened with the group that had been the second quartile and ended up at the bottom!  The deepest decines in value (or pricing)  have come in the highest price ranges.  This is true in Saratoga and other high-end markets around Silicon Valley and in parts of San Jose (such as Almaden Valley) too.

Same pricing info but for Los Gatos 95032:


The 95032 patterns seemed to follow a more understandable path than 95030.

Next, inventory - the available townhouses and condominiums to buy in Los Gatos (both zips combined)over the last 12 months:

Inventory for 95030:



And inventory for 95032:

 

Now, we'll look at the average Days on Market. Things are really interesting here as we view all of Los Gatos by quartile.:

And again, we'll drill down to the zip code & quartile view of the Los Gatos condo and townhome market as we consider the average days on market:



 In the 95030 part of Los Gatos, interestingly, the least expensive condos are taking the longest to sell.  Why might that be the case? Here's my hunch:  most of this zip code is "in the schools" (enjoying Blossom Hill Elementary, Van Meter Elementry, or Daves Avenue School as well as Fisher Middle School and Los Gatos High). The least expensive homes often fall into one of two categories: seniors housing (Alberto Way, the Los Gatos Commons) or small, entry level condos with only one bedroom.  Neither of these would require the highly regarded Los Gatos Schools. 

Conversely, in the 95032 part of town, it's the most expensive townhomes and condos that are taking the longest to sell. A possible reason is that people who can afford a high end condo can also afford a single family home - and right now, the houses have come down so much in price that they are not as out of reach as they were in the past. Most likely, homebuyers are preferring to buy a house (perhaps in Cambrian Park or Willow Glen) rather than a costly condo.

Even more data:

I just ran a little more info off of MLSListings.com, our MLS provider here in the San Jose area, and see that in Los Gatos (both zip codes) 26 condos and townhomes sold & closed in the last month, and there are 132 available today.  That means there are  5 months of inventory, which is just a little into the seller's market territory.

95030 -  51 available, 6 sold in last month = 8.5 months of inventory - av sales price = $1,301,667

95032 -  81 available, 20 sold in last month = 4.05 months of inventory - av sales pr = $1,068,360

Very very interesting that it's approximately twice as easy to sell a condo in 95032 than in 95030. In most of Santa Clara County, the most affordable homes are the ones selling the best.  That general trend appears to be in full swing here in Los Gatos among the townhouse and condo market too.

If you'd like to sell or buy a Los Gatos condo or townhouse, please contact me.  I'd be happy to have a confidential, no obligation conversation with you about your wants, needs and plans.

Although it can be a bit of a challenge to sell a condominium or townhome in Los Gatos, it's not impossible if the pricing, staging, and marketing are all correct.  

What Is Autumn Weather Like in Los Gatos?

What can you expect, weatherwise, for Los Gatos in the fall?  It varies but generally is dry and fairly warm during the days.  Mornings can be chilly but it heats up fairly quickly.  This last week was perhaps a bit unusual, but I'll share with you a bit about the weather here over the last seven days.

This last week, though, we caught the tail end of an Asian hurricane and we got drenched and pelted with strong winds.  After three drought years, no one is complaining: we needed the rain.

The storm caused damage to trees all over and created power outages for many.  Our block in Belwood was mixed - half the homes were out of power for about 48 hours. We were lucky and had power. As usual, though, after a very heavy rain, we had Comcast problems.  Our internet flickered off and on for a couple of days (a challenge for Jim and me since we both work from home and rely heavily on the web).

The temps rose in the days following the storm.  It's not completely abnormal to have an 80 degree day in October, but it is unusual to have a summer like temp with east-coast like humidity. The ground was saturated and as it evaporated, we had several muggy days. 

We got back to the daily walk with Bella through the neighborhood and to Belgatos Park and that's when we learned that so many neighbors were without electricity.  We saw a few trees that were getting extra supports (or should have, as they were now listing badly) but others which seemed just fine.

Many of the smaller plants and bushes fared much better than the larger trees had. To see the blooms along Westhill Drive, you'd never know that a massive storm had passed just 48 hours earlier.

Mike's prickley pear looked just great.

Everyone's got power again and aside from a few downed limbs, the neighborhood is looking back to normal. As usual for fall, Los Gatos is full of people who are jogging, riding bikes, pushing strollers, walking dogs, or just getting out.  Today was into the 70s - a very normal fall temp - and except for a few clouds that have been coming and going, it's again looking like autumn as usual.

Westhill Drive was cordoned off for a block party, too.

This is not surprising: our mild weather makes doing things outdoors be the norm throughout most of the fall.   We enjoy an average of 300 sunny days per year in Silicon Valley, with mild weather being the hallmark.  Rain normally comes from about December until March or April, but even then it's not usually so bad unless we have a once-in-a-decade El Nino year.   Word has it that we might be in for that this year, which would certain end, officially, the drought.  It's supposed to rain again tomorrow.  No one likes water rationing, so we will view it as a gift!

Lowest Priced Homes Remain the "Best Sellers" in Los Gatos

As readers of this blog know, Los Gatos is full of micro-markets, and that can make generalizations about how the "Los Gatos real estate market" is doing a bit skewed.  So whatever you read online, or hear about in your neighborhood or from friends, do take with a grain of salt since your home may or not be similar to whatever other home you're hearing about in terms of how it might sell (or if you're a buyer, the home you may want to purchase may be different....).

Disclaimer aside, I did a few minutes of data-collecting on MLSListings just now for single family homes (houses or attached/duet homes, but not condos or townhomes) in the town of Los Gatos (not Monte Sereno, but LG with zip codes 95032 and 95030).  It appears that the general trend continues: the most affordable Los Gatos homes, generally, are selling fairly well. 

What I did was run the numbers (agents: using the "preview" button on REIL), then simply added two other criteria: high school district (Saratoga-Los Gatos High School District and Campbell Union High School District) and then list price of up to $1.5 million. Then I figured out the absorption rate, or the months of inventory (MOI).  The solds are homes which have closed in the last month.

Where the MOI is greater than 6, it is a buyer's market, and where it's under 6 it is a seller's market - six months is considered a "balanced" market.

So, looking at the first set, for Los Gatos overall the absorption rate is 5.6 months - or very close to a balanced market.  But we know that some areas and price points are selling much slower than others.  Surprisingly, when all of Los Gatos with "the schools" are considered, the MOI is 7.7.  Given that it feels like entry level homes in that part of town feel like they're flying off the market, this doesn't sound right. So look at the second group of numbers, where the price range is limited to those under 1.5 million.  We can see that there are only 39 such homes for sale now (vs 101 for all price points) and the MOI is a brisk 3.55. That makes sense.  So what's slower are the more expensive homes, generally.  Entry level homes in the schools are selling at a healthy pace.

Interestingly, homes in the Campbell Union High School District are faring even better - and the data is inverted, slightly, as to where the sweeter spot of the market lies.  For these homes, those under 1.5 mil are going at a quick 2.4 months of inventory.  The market as a whole for Los Gatos houses for sale in this area is lower still, though - 2.23. That demonstrates that the market is even faster in the higher priced homes.  My belief is that this is the case because those homes - high end homes in the CUHSD - have taken a bigger hit on pricing and buyers are responding.  Cannot prove it in this brief blog post entry, though, but that's my (hopefully educated) hunch. 

What about your neighborhood, or where you'd like to buy?  Get hyper local when you think about how "the market" is.  Feel free to visit my Los Gatos Real Estate Report and see local sales in your neighborhood. Make it more precise by indating the beds/baths you want to consider, and how far out (in a radius) you'd like to see the comps, or how far back in time. Best part: you don't have to register, you don't have to leave a footprint.    (Your search is not saved on my site, so I will not be showing up on your front porch!)  Or call or email me for a confidential, no obligation, no-pressure consultation.

St Mary's Country Fair Is On! Oct 9 - 11, 2009

The St. Mary's Country Fair in downtown Los Gatos is back through Sunday the 11th at 5pm. 

This year the fair is a little more kid-centric and there are more inflated play structures.  Things are not all where they were in the past, but the best of the best is all still there: great food, live entertainment, games, rides, and goods to purchase. (Jim and I just got back in from enjoying supper and a 2.5 hour stint overseeing the Obstacle Course - part playhouse, part inflated balloon attraction). 

Everyone's welcome. The fair's proceeds are split between the school and the parish, and helps to support outreach work in the community too. Please stop on by!  The fair can be accessed off of West Main Street and Lyndon Avenue or off of Bean Avenue near Tait.   There's no entry fee!