Comparing Real Estate Trends of Local Cities
In order to help visualize the previous posts on the 2010 quarterly updates for Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View and Sunnyvale, the graphs below show each city in comparison of overall home sales, median selling price and average days on market. The graphs cover quarterly results from 2008 to 2010 for single-family homes using data from MLS listings Inc.
Number of homes sold –
It is hard to see how the cities responded to the crisis within this time frame since most home sales drop off during the winter months and spike in summer. But it is clear that home sales sagged in the first quarter of 2009, were slow to return initially, and then eventually returned to similar or stronger numbers by the end of 2009, which have continued through 2010.
Median selling price –
All four cities home prices started to slip at the end of 2008, with the exception of Mountain View, which dropped a couple quarters later. Prices rebounded mid-2009, after cities like Sunnyvale had bottomed out in the beginning of 2009, and have begun to stabilize at a depreciated value. Los Altos, which has the most expensive houses of the four cities*, realized a 20 percent drop from the beginning of 2008 to 2010; Mountain View dropped 17 percent, Palo Alto dropped 11 percent, and Sunnyvale dropped 15 percent.
*Los Altos may have a higher median selling price than Palo Alto, but part of that is the wider range of home prices available in each of the 14 Palo Alto neighborhoods, where the lower-end is selling quickly, and a population that is double the size of Los Altos. (Expect a post covering Palo Alto neighborhoods in the future.)
Average days on market –
Building up to the crisis, average days on market increased for all four cities until the beginning of 2009. Interestingly, Los Altos and Palo Alto numbers are still increasing today, while Sunnyvale and Mountain numbers are dropping. This may be a result of higher priced homes in Los Altos and Palo Alto that tend to stay on the market longer, especially in a recession, in contrast to the strong demand for the greater supply of low priced entry-level homes in Mountain View and Sunnyvale.
