There isn’t too much that can be taken from the survey this week that can be used to determine the health of the market. With Monday being the Memorial Day Holiday and having experienced one of the most gorgeous weather patterns of the year, I’m going to presume the most home buyers and sellers (and agents) took the time off to enjoy the sunshine we so dearly missed. There was a very bright spot in the number of closed escrows for the City of San Mateo when considering that there were only four work days of the month so far and ten closed escrows. What’s even more amazing is that of those ten properties that closed escrow, eight of them sold for the asking price or more, including the most expensive home. This has been a growing trend in San Mateo. As there were ten closed escrows, an even number, two properties represented the median price and both of them sold at or above the list price. There were three more properties above the median price that sold at or above the list price and an equal number below the median price. Typically in most communities, the overbidding activity has been happening in the median to lowest priced homes.
Both Foster City and Hillsborough only had one closed escrow each, but both sold over the asking price. I’m curious to see if the heated tread we experienced in May will continue in June. San Mateo had 52 closed escrows this past month and 39 of them sold for the asking price or more. Belmont experienced an equally spirited market with 19 of their 33 closed escrows selling for the asking price or more.
The number of homes in the Active Status increased roughly 8% over last week going up from 357 homes to 386. Homes in the Pending Status decreased approximately 6% from 235 homes last week to 221 homes this week. It’s too early tell how June will fare as far as the number of closed sales, but for the first week of June for the following years, the numbers are 39 Closed Sales (2007), 20 (2008), 24 (2009), and 14 (currently for 2010). Those numbers would lead one to suspect that the market may be cooling down, but if you look at the number for 2004 which had the highest number of closed transactions in the 1999-to-date survey, the first week of June of 2004 only had 28 closed transactions compared to 39 the first week of 2007.
This week my wife has two new listings coming on the market in San Mateo; One at the entry level of pricing and the other in one of the most expensive markets. Both homes are in wonderful condition, beautifully staged and competitively priced. It will be fun to watch the market reactions to each of the homes in their very diverse price ranges.
Until next week, enjoy the springtime weather.
