Arn Cenedella

Archive for the 'San Carlos Real Estate' Category

A tale of three cities – San Carlos Menlo Park and Palo Alto #1

What has happened with the real estate market in San Carlos, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto during 2008?

The top line in each chart is the total inventory of single family homes available.

The middle line in each chart is the number of new single family home listings.

The lower line in each chart is the number of new sales (under contract) of single family homes.

San Carlos

In San Carlos, monthly sales have been fairly consistent throught the year with between 20 and 30 homes going into contract each month.

In San Carlos, the number of new listings each month averaged around 40 for most of the year but dropped to under 30 in August 2008.

In San Carlos, inventory levels typically ranged between 50 and 60 homes on the market with a peak of 70 in June 2008.

Menlo Park

In Menlo Park, the number of monthly sales ranged from between 20 and 35.

In Menlo Park, the number of new listings each month reached about 70 in March and April of this year and since then has averaged about 50.

In Menlo Park, inventory levels since spring have been between 90 and 110.

Palo Alto

In Palo Alto, the number of sales hit a peak of 46 in May 2008 and since that time has decreased to 17 or 18 in August 2008.

In Palo Alto, the number of new listings hit a peak of about 70 in May 2008 and has dropped steadily since that time to a little over 25 in August 2008.

In Palo Alto, inventory increased steadily throught the year and has been between 65 and 75 for the balance of the summer.

August typically is a slow time. I will update you on the September figures in the next few days.

A taste of the current real estate market on the SF Peninsula

On a beautiful San Francisco Peninsula fall morning, I toured the new listings in San Carlos, Redwood City, and Menlo Park today. I have several current buyers looking for homes up to about $1.1M so I focused on the entry level homes in all three communities. I have picked out one home in each city – San Carlos, Redwood City, and Menlo Park to give you an idea of what you could buy for around $1M and slightly less.

500 Pearl Ave., San Carlos is a 2 bedroom 1 bath home on a 4,400sf lot. This older home is located in the highly desirable White Oaks neighborhood in San Carlos. List price is $778,000. This home is listed by Tom and Eda Diridon of Carlmont Associates.

This listing is representative of the good buys out there in the current market.

2 years ago, you could not buy a house in White Oaks for much under $850,000.

At the present time, you can get into White Oaks and live in a charming older home with hardwood floors and be in a great community for under $800,000. This would not have been possible 2 years ago.

Heading south from San Carlos, I came upon a fabulously updated 3 bedroom 2 bath home in an excellent westside Redwood City neighborhood. This home is located at 1077 Chesterton Ave., Redwood City and is listed for $986,000 by Doug Gonzalez of Coldwell Banker Menlo Park.

This home has been beautfiully updated  with gourmet kitchen and a very open floor plan. Many of the major systems like roof, furnace, and water heater have just been replaced. This is a very sharp 3 bedroom 2 bath home at an affordable price.

After seeing a few more homes in Redwood City, I headed further south to west Menlo Park and found 833 Middle Avenue, Menlo Park listed at $1,029,000. This charming 2 bedroom 1 bath home is located across from Nealon Park and Little House and is just down the street from the new georgeous Safeway on El Camino. This older home sits on a large 7,500 sf lot and is listed by Keri Nicholas of Coldwell Banker.

Of course, there are many other fine properties on the market.

The Chesterton home in Redwood City is the nicest of the three and is offered at a very good price.

The Pearl home in San Carlos offers an opportunity to get into a wonderful family neighborhood for not much more than the price of a typical condo or townhouse.

The Middle property in Menlo Park is located in west Menlo Park one of the most desirable areas on the San Francisco Peninsula and with the large lot offers good expansion possibilties down the road.

A Tale of Three Cities and Four Price Ranges

I believe it is common knowledge that real estate is very local. The market in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and San Carlos can be very different from the market in the East Bay or in the Central Valley. Even on the San Francisco Peninsula, markets vary from city to city. At the current time, Palo Alto is stronger than Menlo Park, Menlo Park is stronger than San Carlos and San Carlos is stronger than South San Francisco or Daly City.

In addition, it is common knowledge that within cities, certain neighborhoods are stronger than others.

We are also seeing different markets within cities depending on the price range of the properties being offered for sale.

Below you will see charts for San Carlos, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto broken down into quartiles – i.e. each city is divided into four quartile price ranges – one could label them “low price quartile”, “middle low quartile”, “middle high quartile” and “high quartile”. These prices are for LIST prices.

Here is the chart for San Carlos:

Let’s look at San Carlos…….

In the lowest price quartile in San Carlos, average prices have declined from $825,000 July 2007 to $745,000 July 2008.

In the middle low price quartile in San Carlos, average prices have were $1,075,000 July 2007 dropped to $925,000 in April 2008 and have recently risen to $1,000,000.

In the middle high price quartile in San Carlos, average prices have declined from $1,400,00 July 2007 to $1,300,000 July 2008.

In the high price quartile in San Carlos, average prices have declined from $2,100,000 July 2007 to $1,700,000 July 2008.

In San Carlos:

The lowest quartile price homes are found east of El Camino and prices in those neighborhoods have dropped over the past year. 

The very highest price range in San Carlos has dropped significantly over the past year.

The entry level price quartile (low middle) for homes located west of El Camino has remained fairly steady.

Here is the chart for Menlo Park:

In the lowest price quartile in Menlo Park, average prices have declined from $700,000 July 2007 to $500,000 July 2008.

In the low middle price quartile in Menlo Park, the average price of $900,000 has remained fairly constant over the past year.

In the high middle price quartile in Menlo Park, the average price was $1,325,000 July 2007 and has risen slightly to $1,400,000 July 2008.

In the high price quartile in Menlo Park, average price was $2,500,000 July 2007 and has risen $2,750,000 July 2008.

The lowest priced areas in Menlo Park are in Belle Haven east of Highway 101, property values in that area have dropped significantly.

The higer priced areas of Menlo Park west of El Camino (west Menlo) have increased over the past year even during a very tough market overall. The desirability of west Menlo is matched by the continued financial strenght of the people who want to own there.

The chart does indicate a slight cooling in all prices ranges since spring 2008.

Let’s look at Palo Alto……

In all four price quartiles in Palo Alto, average prices are about the same in July 2007 and July 2008.

The Palo Alto market has remained very strong over the past year.

Los Altos Market Data

Dave Blockhous of Coldwell Banker Los Altos recently did an analysis of the current Los Altos market. In this post, Dave compares market activity (number of sales and listings & average and median prices) over the first six months of the past couple of years. His analysis comes to much the same conclusions as my analysis of the San Carlos, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto markets did: The number of sales are down from years past but the average and median prices have remained stable or increased slightly.

Year to Date Closed Sales San Francisco Peninsula

2007 data is in blue and 2008 data is in red.

These numbers reflect closed sales through June 30 of each year.

As reflected in the number of sales my office has completed this year, the number of closed sales in all communities is down from 2007.

Mountan View down 3%

Los Altos down 21%

Palo Alto down 27%

Menlo Park down 28%

East Menlo Park down 72%

Redwood City down 16%

San Carlos down 20%

Listing Inventory Levels on the San Francisco Peninsula

2007 data is in blue and 2008 data is in red.

As you can see inventory has increased in all communities from 2007 to 2008.

Mountain View up 91%

Los Altos up 45%

Palo Alto up 42%

Menlo Park up 47%

East Menlo Park up 58%

Redwood City up 61%

San Carlos up 54%

Average Sales Price Menlo Park Redwood City and San Carlos

Please review average sales prices in the chart above.

The blue column is 2007 and the red column is 2008.

I have broken out Menlo Park into the areas west of Highway 101 and the areas east of Highway 101 to indicate how different the current market can be based on price range and location.

In west Menlo Park, the 2008 average sales price of $1,841,515 is an increase of 15% from last year.

In east Menlo Park, the 2008 average sales price of $414,612 is a decrease of 34% from last year.

Redwood City has experienced a slight decrease and San Carlos a slight increase.

How is the current market in Menlo Park ?

My Coldwell Banker El Camino office had our Half Year State of the Office and Marketplace meeting earlier today. My office is the number 1 Coldwell Banker office in the San Francisco/Peninsula region in terms of listings and closed sales per agent year to agent.

Here is what our office has experienced in the first half of the year to date.

Average sales price is up 5.5% but the number of sales is down 38%.

So in our market area, prices have held up fairly well and in some cases increased while sales volume is down significantly.

 I will supply actual market data for each community in my market area in subsequent posts.

San Carlos Market Update

The days od inventory for single family homes has increased since 2004 (20 days of inventory) to 56 days of inventory currently but is lower than it was in 2007 (60 days of inventory).

The number of single family home sales has decreased from about 400 per year in years 2003 and 2004 to about 300 yer year in 2007 and 2008.

The sales to list price ratio for single family homes in San Carlos reached a peak of 106% in 2005 but still is at a heathly 102% for the current year.

You may research similar data in other Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties on my site. This information is also broken down by mls neighborhood communities.

Single Family Home Inventories are Increasing

The charts speak for themselves – inventory is increasing. Will sales increase to absorb the increasing inventory?