Today I am continuing my discussion of the real estate market here in San Mateo County with the City of San Mateo. It is the largest city in our immediate area with about 94,000 people. San Mateo has four zip codes and I’ll break down the information about the city by zip. As before, all of my data is coming from Altos Research, the company we subscribe to for all of our research data.

Last week the city of San Mateo had 129 homes for sale with an average time on the market of 81 days. Inventory and days-on-market have been climbing compared to years past, but the Market Action Index is still flat. The trends point toward a weakening market but Altos tells us it is still a Warm Sellers Market of 38. Since San Mateo has been pretty much built out, the homes we have are the homes available and nothing new is being built. We have more people seeking homes in our area than there are homes for them. That is the reason prices stayhigh around her

Because of the size of the city, prices for homes run from entry levels, in the high $600,000’s to multi-millions of dollars. The higher priced homes, in Quartile 1, generally sit on the west side of El Camino Real right around Hillsborough’s town line. They are large homes and depending on where they are the lots can be up to a half acre or more. The entry level homes, in Quartile 4, generally are found east and west of 101 and east of El Camino Real. These are small homes 2 or 3 bedrooms under 1000 sq. feet and sitting on 5000 foot lots.

The prices for homes are moving downward a bit compared to their highs of the past couple of years. The Market Action Index sees this asa good indicator that this trend will continue. Prices have generally
settled in at a plateau but the homes in Quartile 1 have trended downward in recent weeks. This is likely due to fewer homes for sale in the high end.

Price per square foot is often how people factor how much a house costs and in San Mateo price per square foot has been stagnant for a while with the average price per square foot at about $620. Residential
house prices are the perfect example of supply side economics and an example of this is with the Market Action Index which is the index of supply. The 90-day Market Action Index stands at 38 which indicates at
the demand is relatively strong but the available supply of housing isn’t getting acquired immediately. An MAI value greater than 30 typically indicates a “Seller’s Market”. A hot marke causes prices to rise and a cool market causes price decline and remain for sale for longer periods of time. Currently the average days on the market in San Mateo is 81 days with half of all listings today have come on to the market in the last 49 days.

The 94401 zip code. This zip is still a Warm Seller’s Market. So if you’re in the market to buy a starter home in San Mateo, it’s unlikely that prices will drop much.

The 94402 zip code. This is the zip with the high priced homes in San Mateo. You find San Mateo Park, Baywood and Aragon in this zip code. It is a Seller’s Market with few homes to choose from at this time.

The 94403 zip code. These are mostly West side San Mateo homes generally south of 92 down to the Belmont line. There are some entry level homes in here and they are found east of 101, and just
north and south of Hillsdale Blvd. These are mostly move-up homes in this zip.

Finally, the 94404 zip code, the last San Mateo zip code. This one is also shared with Foster City but the data here is only for San Mateo. The homes here are east of 101 and south of East Third Avenue and primarily in Mariners Island and Bridgepoint. This area is primarily townhouses and condos but there are some nice single family homes sitting on the water.

Tomorrow is Foster City.