Palo Alto Real Estate Market Update

It Is hard to believe that it is already November, the holidays are upon us and we are already seeing Christmas decorations in stores. Our local housing market strength this year was unprecedented, with new record prices, inventory remaining low and an array of diversified buyers flooding the market.

Sellers are ecstatic. They know that as long as they do not overprice their homes, the homes will sell with multiple offers as soon as the sellers are willing to listen to offers. Nonetheless, inventory remained very low in comparison to the demand.

Buyers are encouraged by historic low interest rates, and are feeling more secure in their jobs because our local economy is doing better.  Reports of rising prices also are prompting buyers to get into the market now. The broad mix of buyers has produced a huge demand and sparked a bidding war on almost every listing. Buyers are rushing to preview houses as soon as they come on the market and writing offers on more than one house before they score a win.

As of October 31 the listing inventory for single family homes in Palo Alto was low with 46 active listings, which is only a 2.3 months’ worth of inventory . The median sale price so far in 2012 was at a record high of $1,715,000 (compared to the previous year of $1,428,000 in 2011), an increase of 20%. The sale to list price ratio was 106.9 % and average days on the market was 21 days.

Median Price For the Last Five Years For Single Family Homes

Inventory is very low, we sold only 341 houses so far this year, that in part explains the high number of houses sold with multiple offers.

Number of Closed Sales

Primary Year Sale Price, Median Closed Sales, Number of 2007 $1,552,100 465 2008 $1,550,000 356 2009 $1,338,000 390 2010 $1,385,000 448 2011 $1,428,000 451 2012 $1,715,000 341

Price Per Square Foot By Area

Sales By Price Range

The strongest sales activity was in the $2 to $3 million price range followed by the $1.2 to $1.4 million ranges as illustrated in the following chart:

Sales volume By Area

The strongest sales activity was in the $2 to $3 million price range followed by the $1.2 to $1.4 million ranges as illustrated in the following chart: