San Mateo County Real Estate Market Update September 2011 - Activity Continues

There were 412 home sales in San Mateo County in September 2011. It marked the 11th straight month that sales had increased on a year-over-year basis. It is a clear sign that the increase in activity, which was first noticeable at the end of 2009 is continuing today.  Through the first nine months of the year, there have been 3,510 homes sold, up seven percent from the same period last year, and 19 percent from 2009.

While sales had been increasing steadily for the past few years, there was not much dent to inventory as new listings had been increasing as well. That trend reversed in 2011 as listings have declined seven percent.  With more sales and fewer homes coming onto the market, inventory has fallen. At the end of September, there were about 1,300 single family homes for sale in San Mateo County, down from 1,900 for sale at the same point last year. That means that each buyer has about 30% fewer homes to choose from and each seller faces less competition.

A common measure of inventory is to look at the months of supply, which measures how long it would take to sell the current inventory at the most recent sales rate. In September it was 3.1 months, and for the year it has averaged 3.6 months, down from 4.6 months in 2010.

Short-term views of price levels for the entire County are not that informative because the data for any given month is heavily swayed by where most of the homes were sold. In some months, there might happen to be a lot of sales in high priced areas, like Burlingame, Hillsborough or Menlo Park, which drive up the average and median price.

Looking at the past 12-24 months, prices generally appear to be holding steady, with median prices in the $700,000 to $750,000 range, average prices in the $900,000 to $950,000 range, and price per square foot in the $450 to $500 range. The reason for the huge difference in the median and average prices is that there a number of very expensive homes in some of the most desirable zip codes in the country located in San Mateo County. These homes pull up the average price, but there are not enough of them to pull the median up any higher. To get a better understanding of some of the local markets within the County see the links below.

By The Numbers - San Mateo County September 2011

 

See below for all of our latest real estate market updates for September 2011:

Belmont Burlingame and neighborhoods (Burlingame Grove, Burlingame Hills, Burlingame Village, Easton Addition, Mills Estates, Ray Park, Terrace) Foster City Hillsborough and neighborhoods (Upper Hillsborough, Tobin Clark Estate, Lower Hillsborough) Redwood City Redwood Shores San Carlos San Mateo