Is This Good or Bad Real Estate News?

Yes, inventory in Santa Clara County is slowly moving up, and may even hit 5000 before year end, but that isn't the whole picture of our housing market. While sales have slowed, the median price has continued to rise...up 9.3 percent from a year ago. This reflects what we're seeing in our offices. The mixture of homes sold has ticked upward as more high-end homes and fewer bargain foreclosures have changed hands. At least for now, foreclosure sales are down from over half of Bay Area resales to 26.7% currently. Many of these are still being picked up by all-cash investors, who now account for a quarter of these buyers.
Interestingly enough, we are seeing more movement of mid-priced homes as the market has slowed. The properties that are selling fastest in Sunnyvale and Cupertino are those priced between $650,000 and $850,000. Where buyers in the East Bay were rushing to take advantage of the tax credit before it expired, we didn't see as many of that group because of our higher housing prices.
So don't be too shaken by news reports that home sales are slowing. Our values are holding, and even increasing, and for local homeowners, that's good news to hear.

Getting Back to Normal

My interior house painting is finished, and Hak Kim and his crew from Painter Friend did a fabulous job...everything was taped and covered in plastic, and they were in and out in less than two days...and that included removing wallpaper from a bathroom and retexturing the walls. Now my challenge is to get everything back in place before the carpet cleaners come on Thursday. With the help of my long-time handyman, this chore is nearly finished, and I have stopped asking myself, "Why did I ever start this project in the first place?"
In the middle of all this confusion, I managed a week-long trip to my son who is assigned to our embassy in Ottawa, Canada, a beautiful, clean city. I've also kept up with our seasonally slowing real estate market, and managed to learn my way around my new Droid Incredible phone. Never a dull moment!

Doing Good While Doing Well

Last week, we cooked and served a full breakfast at our office of Coldwell Banker, followed by an auction. All proceeds (more than $8000) went to support Habitat for Humanity. We also heard the news that our Cupertino office has placed #1 again in the local CB area. It was fun working together for a good cause, and piles of waffles (and dirty dishes) were a change from piles of paperwork.
With the Labor Day weekend here, summer is finally drawing to a close and consumers and agents are returning home from the last of their summer vacations.
The real estate market continues to have its ups and downs, along with the economy, but the Bay Area market is faring better than most regions in the country. Also, our market is considerably stronger today than it was during the depths of the recession. We’ve come a long way over the past two or three years. The National Association of Realtors reported that the number of buyers who signed contracts to purchase homes rose 5.2 percent in July after hitting a record low in June. Sales nationally had fallen sharply in the months following the expiration of the government's home buyer tax credit in April, and economists were expecting that trend to continue for a third straight month.
Buyers are hiring agents, attending open houses and making offers. Homes are still selling. But it’s more important than ever for sellers to price their property appropriately for today’s market and make sure their home is in the best possible condition. If they do, buyers will come – sometimes with multiple offers.