Carol VanAusdal - Real Estate Broker
California and Santa Cruz County Real Estate
From Scotts Valley to Aptos in Santa Cruz County, below are the 2018 statistics for single family home sales.
Higher sales prices in Capitola, better return for sellers in Live Oak than in Rio Del Mar and a lesser time to sell in Scotts Valley.
All information provided herein is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified.
Are you Ready to Vote??
Proposition 10, which will go before voters in November, would repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Act, a state law that severely curtails rent control in California cities.
“Following decades of strong population growth and persistent underbuilding, California is in the midst of a housing crisis. The statewide failure to keep up with new demand for housing, even through the recent period of rapid economic growth, resulted in a shortage of available housing and rapidly rising housing costs.”
Currently the State needs a minimum of 180,000 units built each year and to date there have been only 100,000 new units added.
Any interesting debate is rising. Read what one Berkeley professor thinks.
Realtor.com’s latest report revealed a surge in price cuts and the second largest drop in the U.S. median list price in three years. Although competition between buyers remained stiff and list prices continue to rise, the report also revealed a slowdown in price growth and easing of inventory declines.
Price reductions are on the rise, especially in pricey markets where inventory is rising. The proportion of listings that feature price cuts rose 1.5 percentage points in the last year to 19.1 percent in August.
The share of price cuts among listings is now 1.5 times more prevalent than in August 2012 when 13 percent of listings featured price discounts. This upward movement was more pronounced in major metropolitan areas in the last year including: Seattle with an 8% increase in cuts; San Jose with a 7% increase; and a 5% increase in San Diego, Riverside, Indianapolis and Los Angeles. In fact, 39 of the 45 largest markets saw an increase in the share of price cuts over last year.
In Santa Clara County, list to sale price ratio has dropped from 112.3% in April to 104.1% in July.
Has the Inventory Crunch Begun to Subside?
The positive forces of faster economic growth and steady hiring are being met by the negative forces of higher home prices and mortgage rates. Even with slightly more homeowners putting their home on the market, inventory is still subpar and not meeting demand. As a result, “affordability constraints are pricing out some would-be buyers and keeping overall sales activity below last year’s pace.” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
Home price growth remains swift, and listings are still going under contract at a robust pace in most of the country, which indicates that even with rising inventory in many markets, demand still significantly outpaces what’s available for sale,” Yun says. However, if this trend of increasing supply continues in the months ahead, prospective buyers will hopefully begin to see more choices and softer price growth.
That is if mortgage rates hovering near a seven-year high create affordability challenges for prospective buyers looking to close on a home purchase.
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Santa Cruz has seen DOM increase since the first of the year from 24 to 28 days in July and inventory from 62 in January to 135 units in July.
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Aptos has seen DOM decrease since the first of the year from 38 to 26 days in July and inventory increase from 39 in January to 72 units in July.
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Capitola has seen DOM decrease since the first of the year from 29 to 7 days in July and inventory increase from 7 in January to 12 units in July.
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San Jose has seen DOM increase since the first of the year from 14 to 16 days in July and inventory increase from 277 in January to 660 units in July.
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Sunnyvale has seen DOM increase since the first of the year from 11 to 17 days in July and inventory increase from 22 in January to 59 units in July.
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Mountain View has seen DOM increase since the first of the year from 11 to 18 days in July and inventory increase from 7 in January to 14 units in July.
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Cupertino has seen DOM increase since the first of the year from 13 to 14 days in July and inventory increase from 13 in January to 27 units in July.
On average, 86% of all offers accepted in the past 30 days within my real estate office located in the Silicon Valley have not had any contingencies applied. In other words, removing loan, appraisal or physical inspections are a part of the contract. Most of these offers also were involved in a multiple offer situation, some ranging from 10-25 offers or more.
Thirty-five percent of home buyers who purchased a home in November and December said they made an offer on the home without seeing it first in person, according to a newly released survey of more than 1,500 home purchasers conducted by the real estate brokerage Redfin. That is up from 33 percent in May 2017 and from 19 percent in June 2016.
Sight-Unseen Offers
The following lists the percentage of buyers by metro area who said they made an offer on a home they hadn’t seen first in person:
- Los Angeles: 57%
- San Diego: 46%
- San Francisco: 44%
- Portland: 30%
- Sacramento: 30%
- Seattle: 19%
Personally, I would seldom recommend to a buyer or an agent to follow this practice. And for sellers, honestly, letting them know that more often than not “blind” offers fail to go through with the transaction.