San Mateo Real Estate Newsletter October 2009

The Down Jones Index has been running at about 100 times the average sales price for single family homes in San Mateo County. It closed October at about 95x. While the DJI climbed in October, real estate dipped about 1% in San Mateo County.

There was both good and bad news for real estate this past week. Unemployment has gone past 10% nationally, but the FED stated they will likely keep interest rates flat for sometime.

All indications are that we are going into a jobless recovery

The sale Price for all San Mateo County Single-Family Homes vs. the Dow Jones Index monthly average

Not only is unemployment high, but the average American worker is only working 33 hours per week on average. The underemployed will be fully utilized prior to companies adding new bodies to their payrolls. Meantime, credit remains elusive for many, people continue to see their credit card limits greatly reduced and their home equity lines closed altogether.

In addition, there is still a foreclosure cloud hanging over the real estate market. Foreclosures remain at all time highs and banks appear to have a great deal of properties on their books. These will all eventually need to be sold. The good news will hopefully be that interest rates remain low into 2010. This will be important not only for home buyers but also because there are a significant number of adjustable rate mortgages resetting their rates in 2010.

SAN MATEO COUNTY
INVENTORY , CLOSED SALES, NEW LISTINGS
& DAYS ON MARKET

Overall, October was not so scary for San Mateo County's real estate market. Prices remained fairly stable compared to 2004 levels. Inventory is lower than this same time in 2007 and 2008. This is primarily attributed to about 1000 less listings year-to-date vs. 2008.

Single family home sales look like they are going to repeat 2008. To date there have been about 3,200 single family homes sold vs. 3,165 for this same time last year in San Mateo County. These unit volume sales numbers represent about 70% of the annual sales average for the previous decade. Sales volume for 2009 has been greatly bolstered by strong sales in the second half of the year. This October there were 395 closings in San Mateo county vs. 347 units in 2008 and 275 closings in 2007.

I'm hoping this all means, that we have seen the bottom. We are now experiencing some consistency in sales volume, new inventory and prices. While the economy still remains precarious, bar another economic disaster, we should be relatively stable going forward.

	No. of	Avg. Home Sale Price	Avg
Year	Closed Sales	Avg. Home Sale Price	DOM	New Listings
1998	5,746	$520,901	40	7,830
1999	6,434	$620,436	45	7,273
2000	5,659	$838,782	29	6,944
2001	4,740	$791,809	46	8,033
2002	5,951	$787,021	44	8,211
2003	6,454	$805,867	46	8,471
2004	6,564	$957,347	33	7,756
2005	5,877	$1,097,324	32	7,998
2006	5,006	$1,126,572	43	7,723
2007	4,172	$1,209,838	51	7,452
2008	3,876	$1,038,395	71	7,550
Oct-09		$941,411

	Current Inventory	Closed Sales	New Listings	Sales YTD	Listings YTD
This Past Month	1,442	395	545	3,190	5,837
Decade Average	1,383	449	639	4,399	6,963
% Diff	4%	-12%	-15%	-27%	-16%

SAN MATEO COUNTY Graph 1 plots monthly Inventories, Closed Sales and New Listings. This graph is an excellent visual for determining the strength of the real estate market. The graph plots how over the past three years Inventories have been rising as New Listings remained fairly stable and Closed Sales keep decreasing.	Graph 1—Monthly Inventories, Sales and New Listings for Single-Family Homes in San Mateo County

SAN MATEO COUNTY Graph 2 looks at the same type of data as Graph 1, but it compares it from a seasonable point of view. It compares the numbers for the identical month over the past decade. Again, the same trend is visible; New Listings are stable while Inventory is increasing and Closed Sales decrease.	Graph 2—Inventories, Sales and New Listings for Single-Family Homes in San Mateo County for a given month

SAN MATEO COUNTY Graph 3 is a cumulative look at Year-to-Date statistics for Closed Sales vs. New Listings. This graph illustrates how dismal the year to date performance is compared to the previous decade. Listings Year-to-Date remain high while Closed Sales are well below any of the previous years.	Graph 3—Total Single-Family Homes Sold & New Listings Year to Date in San Mateo County

SAN CARLOS
INVENTORY, CLOSED SALES, NEW LISTINGS

San Carlos real estate is lagging about 6 months behind most of San Mateo County. While most of the county's communities saw average home prices bottom out around the December 2008 to January 2009 time frame, San Carlos is just now bottoming out. The story does get a little more complicated then just average prices because there were so few sales in January 2009, that the price spike during that period of time did not accurately reflect home price trends in the area. But there are other symptoms of it lagging surrounding communities.

Inventory is not much better than it was last year, 70 homes vs. 76. San Mateo County's inventories are about 24% lower than last year, San Carlos' is only about 8% lower. However, its current inventory increase is inline with the County's 4% when compared to the decade average.

The biggest significant difference between San Carlos and the county or Redwood City is that sales are down about 20% year-to-date in San Carlos compared to last year . While it is true that San Carlos new listings are also down 15% (which means less homes to sell), the county had 13% fewer listings so far this year and Redwood City had 25% less. However, Redwood City's sales are only down 7% and San Mateo County actually saw a 1% overall increase in sales volume.

With prices stabilizing and inventories decreasing, San Carlos also appears to be flattening out. Certainly Days on the market are favorable for San Carlos, 45 days for homes sold vs. closer to 60 at the start of the year.

Average Monthly Stats for Single Family Homes in San Carlos

	Current Inventory	Closed Sales	New Listings	Sales YTD	New Listing YTD
This Past Month	70	25	29	179	332
Decade Average	67	29	40	302	445
% Diff	4%	-15%	-27%	-41%	-25%

Average Monthly price for Single Family Homes in San Carlos

Monthly Inventories, Sales and New Listings for Single-Family Homes in San Carlos

San CArlos real estate inventory history

Month over Month comparison of Inventories, Sales and New Listings in San Carlos	Year to Date Closed Sales and Listing in San Carlos

REDWOOD CITY
INVENTORY, CLOSED SALES, NEW LISTINGS

Redwood City's price swings were not as severe as San Carlos', but close to the county's overall. Prices appear somewhat stable and even increasing in low-end areas where foreclosures are sometimes receiving multiple bids. Average home prices continue to bounce around the $700K to $800K level. This is about 27% below the average price for all of 2007.

Inventories are only 15% above the decade average and due to a strong second half of the year, October sales volume are only 4% below the decade average. Overall, year-to-date sales for Redwood City are down 7% vs. last year.

Days on the market (DOM) are inline with the county, at 60 days for sold homes, which is a great improvement over the 100 days experienced at the start of the year. However, there are still many homes lingering on the market in Redwood City. While DOM was 60 days last month for homes that sold, currently active homes have been on the market 97 days. This tells you that there are many homes out there still looking for buyers after 6 months.

Average Monthly Stats for Single Family Homes in Redwood City