Los Altos Real Estate Statistics, What Do The Fourth Quarter Sales Numbers Tell Us?
The Multiple Listing Service is our most efficient means to sell a home and the most reliable source of local market information. The following information was taken from our local MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
According to our local MLS provider (ProMLSlistings.com), there currently are 65 single family homes for sale in Los Altos. Of these, 10 are under contract. That leaves us with 55 homes that are actively being marketed for sale on the MLS. I anticipate many of last year’s listings that did not sell will come back on the market within the next two weeks.
Above is the October through December (4th Quarter) sales statistics for Los Altos single family homes since 2004. As one can see, over the last five years, listings have averaged 72 and sales have averaged 73. However, there was a huge drop off in the number of sales in the fourth quarter of 2008. Although listings (during the 4th quarter) have remained fairly constant over the last 5 year, the number of sales was off by approximately 50% in 2008 over the five year average. How has the huge drop in sales numbers affected Los Altos real estate values?
During the 4th quarter in Los Altos, we have seen a profound drop in both the average sales price and median sales price. Take a look for yourself. The graph below depicts the year over year sales prices (for 4th quarter of each year) for single family homes in Los Altos since 2004. Are we back to 2005 prices?
The graph below indicates that there hasn’t been a significant shift in the days on the amount of time that a listing sits on the market. Although December is the typical month when listings are taken off the market and then re-listed thereby restarting the “days on market (DOM)” clock.
Tip
If a listing is re-listed and off the market for 30 days or more, it will appear on the Multiple Listing Service as a new listing with DOM and CDOM reset at zero. Always have your agent research thoroughly any listing before you make a pricing decision on a property.
