The Silicon Valley real estate market is spread out over a few counties, primarily Santa Clara County but also much of San Mateo County and part of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties. Santa Clara County is home to about 1.8 million residents, more than half of them in the big city of San Jose. The high tech companies such as Cisco, Apple, Google and more are spread out around the valley, and each neighborhood has a very different set of housing market conditions. Even so, we’ll take a broad view of the county today to give some general indicators on what you might expect when moving here.
As a whole, home prices in Santa Clara are rising due to a dire scarcity of listing inventory. On average, houses sold in December were overbid and the sales price to list price ratio was about 102%. Here are the numbers at a glance:
| Trends At a Glance | Dec 2012 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $682,500 | $685,000 (-0.4%) | $530,000 (+28.8%) |
| Average Price | $908,873 | $885,921 (+2.6%) | $714,562 (+27.2%) |
| No. of Sales | 899 | 903 (-0.4%) | 903 (-0.4%) |
| Pending Properties | 980 | 1,500 (-34.7%) | 1,396 (-29.8%) |
| Foreclosures Sold | 25 | 34 (-26.5%) | 112 (-77.7%) |
| Short Sales Sold | 154 | 138 (+11.6%) | 229 (-32.8%) |
| Active Listings | 534 | 782 (-31.7%) | 2345 (-77.2%) |
| Active Foreclosures | 22 | 27 (-18.5%) | 173 (-87.3%) |
| Active Short Sales | 39 | 52 (-25.0%) | 980 (-96.0%) |
| Sales Price vs. List Price | 102.6% | 102.3% (+0.3%) | 98.7% (+3.9%) |
| Days on Market | 36 | 32 (+11.3%) | 63 (-42.8%) |
Though there was a slight slippage in values from the prior month’s median sales prices, the average price was up 2.6%. More dramatically, though, prices were up 27-28% from the year before! Foreclosures and short sales are way down. Inventory is critically low, off 77% from a year earlier.
It is a very deep seller’s market in Santa Clara County. Some areas, such as Cupertino, are very difficult for buyers right now. Cupertino’s prices are already past the last peak pricing and have only about 2 weeks of inventory.
| Trends At a Glance | Dec 2012 | Previous Month | Year-over Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $1,343,880 | $1,325,000 (+1.4%) | $982,500 (+36.8%) |
| Average Price | $1,304,180 | $1,373,820 (-5.1%) | $1,085,210 (+20.2%) |
| No. of Sales | 26 | 27 (-3.7%) | 24 (+8.3%) |
| Pending Properties | 18 | 23 (-21.7%) | 13 (+38.5%) |
| Foreclosures Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 0 (N/A) |
| Short Sales Sold | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 0 (N/A) |
| Active Listings | 13 | 26 (-50.0%) | 31 (-58.1%) |
| Active Foreclosures | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 0 (N/A) |
| Active Short Sales | 0 | 0 (N/A) | 4 (-100.0%) |
| Sales Price vs. List Price | 102.9% | 104.4% (-1.4%) | 96.4% (+6.7%) |
| Days on Market | 31 | 33 (-5.8%) | 52 (-40.7%) |
To get the full report with much more data and information for all areas within Santa Clara County, please see www.popehandy.rereport.com.
