An easy way to see the spread of the market is by dividing it in Quartiles.  Number 1 offers the top priced tier of homes, those in San Mateo Park, Baywood, Baywood Knolls, and Aragon.  There were 45 of these for sale last week with a Median Price of $1,529,500.  These are the oldest homes in San Mateo, the largest homes and have the largest lots.  We saw 4 sales last week and 2 listings.

Quartile 2 has homes all over the city, but most are in the hills.  They’re smaller in comparison to Quartile 1, the Median Price was $975,000 last week, with 5 sold and 2 new listings.

Quartile 3 has more modest homes, smaller in size, and could be in the flatlands west of 101 or just east.  These saw 4 sold, 3 listed, and a Median Price of $689,000.

The last, Quartile 4, offers the entry level house with a Median Price of $499,450 these are the smallest houses, often needing updating and are generally either north San Mateo or in North or South Shoreview.  There were 4 sold last week and 5 listed.

A picture is always worth a thousand words and looking at the chart for price is always interesting.  We are always talking to people waiting for the bottom of the market, and mid-year is never, ever when that happens.  If you’re interested in buying at the lowest price, always pick New Year’s week.  Prices go up after that and San Mateo is no exception.  Some of the reason for prices diving at year end has to due with inventory — we generally have little at that time — and mid-year we generally have lots to choose from.  There is no exception about this today.  We’re right up there and in comparison to the peak of the real estate market in 2007, prices are somewhat stable for San Mateo.

The second most interesting picture is that showing the inventory of housing and we’re not as high as last year at this time, but considerably higher than the past 4 years.  Why is this?  I suspect many people have their houses for sale to try and beat the loan reset they expect to see, especially if they bought their house within the past 3 to 5 years when many Alt-A loans are now due to reset.  What does this mean to you if you’re thinking of buying a new house this year?  Does it mean you have more negotiating room?  That’s hard to say. If the seller want to sell and still have some money left over to pay commissions, they won’t negotiate much, if at all.  Many seller’s are just “above water” and trying not to have a short sale on their credit record.

The Market Action Index devised by Altos Research, shows San Mateo is moving up a little and is a Cold Buyer’s Market but sits at 19 in this index.  If it is able to move up just a little bit, it become a Buyer’s Market and shows that San Mateo may be turning the corner.  Only time will tell on this one and if you’re interested in following this, let me know and I’ll set you up with your own reports coming to your email box.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the 3 zip codes of San Mateo real estate. Each one is unique.

Last week there were 195 houses for sale and the Median Price for a single family house in San Mateo was $898,000 and that was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, house about 59 years old.  The average price for a San Mateo home last week was $1,023,029.  We saw one house listed at a low of $375,000 – likely a Bank Owned house, and one listed at a high of $8,888,000 for an historical landmark home in the Park.  14 houses sold and almost half of all listings saw price reductions.  Yes, the market is still in a flux and prices are fluid.  What that means for a buyer is that the selling price is likely to be lower than the asking price.

Altos Research, the company supplying our data divides the housing market into quarters, or quartiles.  Number One is the top tier, two the next tier and so forth.  What this chart offers is a good snapshot of the various levels of pricing in San Mateo.  The number of houses for sale is equal in each price range, the age is pretty much the same as well, but the average number of days on the market jumps significantly the lower the price point goes.

The Inventory of housing  for sale is going up, not too suprising for Spring, but also because there are a lot of houses in the pre-foreclosure pipeline and we anticipate seeing some, if not many of them coming to market within the next few months in foreclosure.  What will this mean for you if you’re looking to buy?  Should you wait?  Should you buy now?  If you see the right house for your needs, do not wait to see if something else comes along later.  Something new is always going to be there and if you wait too long, you may lose the amazing interest rates we have today.  Believe it or not, lower interest rates trump lower house prices.

The  question we get today is why isn’t pricing going down?  As you can clearly see, the lowest prices we had seen in years were clearly there this year, but it’s too late for you, because they were in January and prices have gone up every week since.  As the market heats up with pent up demand, and more housing to choose from, prices may stabilize but then again, they may not.  San Mateo is a great city to live in and people want to buy here.

The final view of San Mateo’s real estate market is seen through this chart, the Market Action Index.  Here’s the view that shows whether we’re in a Buyer’s market or a Seller’s market.  We’ve been in the buyer’s market for about 18 months, and as you can see, we’ve been bounching along the bottom, up a little, down a little, but pretty much staying even for a long time.  Yes, we are at the bottom of the market.  If you are trying to time it, do it now because it could go up tomorrow.  Don’t wait any longer to buy.  Now’s the time to do it.  We’re here to help, just click the Contact Us button on the left and send us your message.  We are here to help you.