The Silicon Valley Real Estate Market

There is some confusion about the state of the real estate market in the Silicon Valley lately.  Are prices going up, are they going down? You hear anything and everything.

These two graphs show the average price per month since the beginning of 2018, one for houses, and the other one for condominiums and townhouses combined.  I show here the cities of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, and Menlo Park. (East Palo Alto for houses).
The Counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo as a whole are also shown, giving some perspective on the larger numbers.
For May, figures are just trends - it is as of 5/20/19

Click on the graphs to see larger

Conclusion? Prices are about at the same level. The reality is that there are segments of the market which are rather up, and some segments which are down from their highs of a year ago (which were the results of many multiple offers).  Small entry level condominiums would be in the "soft" category,  and I would consider them a deal right now. Remodeled homes in desirable areas would be in the "solid" category.

To know in which category you are and how to structure your offer, you definitely need a specialist.

Factors helping the market:
- low interest rates,
- more inventory for some categories

Factors keeping it competitive:
- very high job creation in the Valley - see this recent article from the Mercury News, by George Avalos.

Thank you for reading!  Share if you like, and contact me for your real estate questions!

Francis Rolland

My Home Valuation tool
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates   (low!)

South Bay among best US job markets

Reading this little article in the San Jose Mercury News, dated Nov. 30, about the job market in the Bay Area, it strikes me as something of the utmost interest in explaining why the real estate market is so imbalanced in the Silicon Valley. (i.e.: too much demand, not enough supply).

This article, which I will simply paraphrase, while giving all credits to the SJ Merc, explains that according to a report from the US bureau of Labor Statistics, the County of Santa Clara saw jobs increase by 3.5 % in the one-year period ending in October 2012.

The San Francisco - San Mateo - Marin metro region had an annual growth of 3.4 %, and the East Bay 2%. 

Only the Houston region in Texas showed a higher jobs increase: 3.6%

More work means more people attracted to the area. I believe there is also a parallel between freeway traffic and housing prices... Don't you think so? I have never seen 280 so congested after 3pm between Los Altos and San Francisco.

Thank you for reading!

Francis

Silicon Valley Real Estate

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