Foster City Real Estate - June 2012

Inventory Plummets

In 2010 and 2011, the average number of unsold homes on the market at the end of a month in Foster City was 25 homes. The lowest monthly inventory total was 13 and the highest monthly inventory total was 36. The market situation has changed dramatically in 2012. Every month in 2012 has ended with less than 13 unsold homes. At the end of June 2012 inventory stood at 9 homes, down from 33 homes at the same point last year.

Inventory has been driven down by a rise in sales and a drop in new listings. At the halfway point of 2012 there have been 59 homes sold in Foster City, up from 47 home sales in the first six months of 2011. At the same time, new listings are down from 90 new listings in the first six months of 2011 to just 72 new listings in the first six months from 2012.

What does this all mean?  Well, a prospective buyer in the Foster City real estate market today has about 1/4 as many homes to choose from as that buyer did last year. We are also seeing signs of rising buyer demand across the Peninsula. There are more buyers chasing after fewer and fewer homes. This is tipping the advantage towards sellers. It varies by city, but we are seeing the ratio of sales prices to list prices climbing above 100%. This means that more and more homes are receiving multiple offers and offers above the asking price.

In Foster City, the ratio of sales price to list price has been between 100% and 102% in each of the past three months. That is a positive sign for sellers. For buyers in the market, this means that if the right home becomes available you may want to consider stretching a little above the asking price rather than inciting a bidding war. One piece of solace is that in some neighboring cities the ratio has been closer to 105%.

Over time, if homes are selling for greater than listing prices we would expect to see the classical measures of price levels, such as average and median selling values, and average price per square foot, rising in response. To-date, we have not seen any conclusive signs in the summary statistics.

However, in a real estate market the size of Foster City it is difficult to notice a change in pricing in the short-term because there are not enough sales to get reliable trends. The data we do have suggests average and median prices remain around $1,000,000. The average price per square foot in Foster City is about $450.

By The Numbers - Foster City Real Estate for 2012