Beautiful Mountain Blog of Belmont

Belmont-July 2009 Home Sales (by request)

dmorgan@morganhomes.com (Drew & Christine Morgan) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:02:00 PST

We’re posting the sales for Belmont from back in July at the insistence of one of our readers (thanks for being so patient). We skipped that month since we were so busy ourselves. Quite a few buyers came out of the woodwork in July and we noticed it on one of our listings in San Carlos that had multiple offers. In our estimation, the Peninsula real estate market has not recovered significantly enough to warrant such activity but the low interest rates probably spurred people into action—all at once. At 24, July had the most sales and of any month this year. The median price was also the highest it has been all year at $926,500. But just look at how many homes sold over a million dollars! There were some very large homes selling which definitely propped up the median price temporarily. We’ll go out on a limb and say that will probably hold for the remainder of the year—and well into the next; mostly because of the seasonal nature of real estate. The prices that the sellers accepted were far under what their homes were listed for, indicating some tough negotiations by buyers and capitulating by sellers. Fifteen of the 24 homes sold under asking for on average of $ 43,000 less. Sales in July were still less than half of what they were just a few years ago when homes were flying off the shelves. Still, it’s nice to see a momentary blip—unless you are a buyer....

Peninsula home values continue to slide, but slower.

dmorgan@morganhomes.com (Drew & Christine Morgan) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:36:00 PST

We thought we'd update this graph depicting the median price in several peninsula cities. Note that while in Q4 of 2007 the median price in Menlo Park was still rising, it had started to fall off dramatically in Daly City. Prices appear to have hit bottom--for now. The real estate landscape has changed so dramatically in the last few years that everything we knew about home values (and recoveries) needs to be reexamined. Could we be in for another double dip? Knowbody knows for for sure--one way of the other. It's safe to say that at some point a recovery will happen and next time it might pay to watch what is going on in other cities. Daly City seems to ge a good barometer as to where the market may he headed...

Belmont Market Report--October 2009

dmorgan@morganhomes.com (Drew & Christine Morgan) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:28:13 PST

Changes to the Belmont home market seemed to have slowed recently. (click the graph for a full sized image) Data retreived from the MLS. MEDIAN PRICE In 2008 the median home price stood at $960,000 in the month of October. This year, it has dropped to $865,000. Once again the numbers are a bit misleading. The size home which sold last year in October was 150 square feet larger. The adjusted median home price for Belmont this year should be $938,000 which would put the median drop at a paltry 2.2% year over year. DOM The sellers in Belmont are still receiving around 99% of their asking price, just that they have to ask a little less this year. SALES Sales dropped from September but were almost double what they were last year at this time--reflecting more confidence in the market. Of course this number may be influenced by a mad dash of buyers availing themselves of the $8,000 tax credit. So far 1.2 million buyers have qualified for the $8,000 tax credit. 40% of those said they would not have considered buying a home without it. 70% said it weighed heavily on their decision to purchase e home. Really? All it takes is an $8,000 credit and people are willing to buy a home? The graph below shows the sales in Belmont for the month of October 2009. Since homes are sometimes relisted, the total days on market and original list price totals can be skewed. We searched the...