It is the single biggest story of the San Carlos spring market. Inventory is almost nonexistent. Lets compare Q1 of 2007 with Q1 of 2008. 2007 was a relatively flat year in terms of the number of homes changing hands. With this in mind, take a look at the alarming differences:
In Q1 of 2007, San Carlos had 67 homes sell at an average price of $1,099,577 with the Average Days on the Market (DOM) at 33 days.
In Q1 of 2008, San Carlos had only 41 homes sell at an average price of $1,192,461 with the average DOM at 31 Days.
The number of sales in Q1 dropped by almost 38% from 2007 to 2008. Curiously, the DOM went down by 6% and the average price went up 8%.
Currently, San Carlos has only 46 homes on the market. This number is well below the expected average for the spring season. Some of the 46 active homes have been sitting on the market for quite some time. The lack of quality inventory may explain why we have had so many multiple bid situations over the past 3 months. Its really pretty simple:
A quality home + a reasonable price + a highly desirable town + low inventory = multiple bid situations.
The elusive $1,400,000 – $1,800,000 price range has been hit the hardest in terms of inventory for prospective buyers. Homes that have come on in this price range which were priced correctly have sold almost immediately, for example 12 Elston Court (listed by Kelly Clarke of Cashin Company), 2879 Roland (listed by David Young of Coldwell Banker), 1006 Orange Avenue (listed by Jim Arbeed of Coldwell Banker) and 134 Sunnydale (listed by Justine Ford of ReMax Today).
Next Monday’s post will examine the most likely causes for our low inventory.
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