The numbers for this week tell a story that demonstrates our market, in most cases, is so vastly different from what is being reported in the media.
First, let’s look at the trend lines for the Active, Pending and Month-to-date Closed sales on the March 28, 2010 Chart. The Active inventory continues to be declining from last year at this time, but still above 2007 and 2008. It is slightly up over last week. As 2004 was the peak year for number of units sold in all of San Mateo County, I’ve recently been including the numbers for the six communities in my survey for 2004 for comparison. The spread sheet for 2004 is also posted below. Currently there are 311 homes in the Active Status compared to 176 in 2004.
The trend lines for the Pending and Sold statuses are nearly identical, which is the first time I’ve seen evidence of that in recent memory. When the number of Pending Sales started showing an upward trend approximately in April of 2009, the trend line for the Closed Sales started its upward trend but at a significantly slower pace. The disparity was primarily due to so many Pending Sales being bogged down in the “short sale” pipe line. More on Short Sales later, but a significant portion of the current Pending Sale inventory are Short Sales. The number of Closed Sales has increased dramatically over last year and improved over the 2007 and 2008, but the increase is largely due to the sales of non-Short Sale or REO transactions. This information suggests to me that any efforts by the government to expedite the Short Sale process is failing miserably and that the increase in the number of Closed Sales is due to improved demand and that, if the home was not purchased by all cash, the financing of the new purchases may be speeding up a bit. For comparison the number of Pending Sales in 2004 was 223 compared to 196 currently. The number of Month-to-date Closed Sales was 115 in 2004 compared to 88 currently.
When you look at the March 28, 2010 spread sheet, please note the number of homes that have sold for the asking price or more. There are more transactions that are receiving multiple offers and unlike our market over the past year, the multiple offers and overbids are not only happening for homes in the entry level pricing. So far this month there were two sales where the Sale Price greatly exceeded the List Price. One home in Belmont, listed and sold by our company, was listed for $688,000 and sold for $914,500. That’s $226,500 or nearly 33% over the asking price. They were six reported offers on that home. A home in Foster City was listed at $999,000 and sold for $1,396,000. $397,000 over the asking price represents an approximate 40% overbid. I have been seeing large overbids on the entry level pricing homes, but typically the homes in the higher price ranges that have sold quickly or with multiple offers have sold at the asking price or slightly above. When there is such a considerable increase over the asking price, appraisals may be a concern if financing is involved in the purchase. Obviously that was not the case for these two transactions.
Now back to the numbers regarding Short Sales and REOs. Of the total 196 Pending Sales, 69 are reported as Short Sales (35%) and 7 are reported as REOs (4%). Of the 88 Month-to-date Closed Sales, 4 are reported as Short Sales (5%) and 5 are reported as REOs (6%). Typically most of the Short Sale and REO activity is in the entry level pricing of these communities.
Here are the numbers by community:
City: Short Sales Pending/Closed REO Pending/Closed
Belmont 6/2 0/0
Burlingame 9/0 0/1
Foster City 4/0 0/1
Hillsborough 2/0 0/0
Redwood Shores 0/2 1/0
San Mateo 48/3 3/3
Next week I’m finally meeting with a “web guy” to improve both the look and the content of this blog site. I have a lot more data accumulated that may be of interest to you and it will be posted in the weeks to come. This site is a work-in-progress. I wanted to get out the local data as some lenders and title companies have been waiting for easier access to this information. Until now they had to wait until it was handed out during my weekly report to our local association of Realtors®. Thank you for bearing with me in my “Construction Zone”.
hehe ok so here’s just how stupid I am, midway through looking through your post I dropped my cup of coffee on my desk and shut the site by accident and I couldn’t find your internet page once again right up until 3 days later to finish reading from the point i stopped at since I did not remember how I linked to your blog to begin with haha in any case it was worth the delay..thanks