Is Something Changing?

There is a season for real estate just like a season for all things.  The Fall generally sees a slow
down in listings and sales as people begin to think of other things on weekends like football and fall sports.  Last weekend’s open house saw a reduction in the number of people coming through and we weren’t
the only place feeling this.  Whether this is something that was only due to other things going on last weekend or the beginning of the Fall season, won’t be recognized until we see this over a couple of
weekends.

I decided to take a look at the market for our seven cities, Millbrae, Burlingame, Hillsbourough, San Mateo,
Foster City, Belmont and San Carlos over the past two and a half months with data from Infolink, our local MLS.  We are a static market.  Truly.  Between July and September we saw a total increase of 53 houses for sale in the seven cities.  Considering the news and the constant hammering at how many homes have come on the market for sale in other places in the Bay Area, we are really pretty static.  Okay, it’s only the middle of the month and things can change but my guess is this snapshot of the market is pretty accurate.

Real Estate Stats

Both Foster City and Millbrae are static in the number of listings for single family homes has gone down by one.  Burlingame and San Mateo increased slightly.  San Mateo, the largest of our cities should be expected
to increase due to its size, but Burlingame increased by 13 listings.  Wonder why?  Prices incidentally, have not gone down in any of these cities.

So, is something happening in the market today?  Are we beginning to see changes?  Not in the usual way we see it in the Fall.  We aren’t see a decline in listing but just the opposite.  Prices often dip a bit in the Fall/Winter 4th Quarter of the year.  They aren’t doing that much in the upper quartile of homes, but are dipping the the lower quartile.  This is due to the difficulty of getting loans for entry level property.  Will this change as the mortgage industry settles down?  My crystal ball is foggy on this one!

It will be interesting to see how busy our open house will be this Sunday.  Will we see more people coming through or fewer?  More on that tomorrow.  It’s a great house and it’s in Millbrae.