Archive for January, 2012

I’m sure that many will be glad to see the end of 2011. Last year was a year of a very slowly recovering economy with short sales and foreclosures dominating the real estate landscape. Did things get better or worse during the course of the year? Read on and find out.

Lets take a look at the cost of an average detached single family homes in some of our major areas at the start of 2011 and see what that really means as well as monitoring the change as we leave the year behind.

The Danville Market

100 such homes sold in Danville in the first quarter of 2011 with prices ranging from $467,000 to $1.95m, an average price of $877,423.

An example of what you could expect to buy for $870,000 is the home illustrated here.

This 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath single level home in Leander Hills with 2322 sq.ft. of living space, was very nicely updated and set on a lot approaching a half acre with manicured grounds.

Flash forward to the last quarter. There we see that 135 homes were sold. Prices ranged from $382,500 to $1.74m, an average of $812,875. So the average price appears to have fallen but what would that buy?

Try a 5 bed, 3 bath home in Sycamore.

With 2751 sq.ft. and a lot of just over a third acre, this home was also very nicely updated. Overall though, probably not quite as appealing as the one previously mentioned which might suggest little real change in prices although volume of sales was up by 35%.

The San Ramon Market

Like Danville, real estate activity in San Ramon is closely related to the quality of schools although historically, prices in San Ramon have always been rather less than in Danville

Here, In the first quarter of 2011, we saw 133 homes sold with prices from $392,500 to  $2.8m. The average was $767,768 and for around that figure you could have got a completely updated home in Bollinger Hills with

5 beds, 3 baths and 2776 sq.ft. of living space on a 0.25 acre lot.

Moving forward to the last quarter again, we saw  only 92 sales taking place. Prices ranged from $265,000 to $1.66m giving an average price of $683,314. For just a little more ($690,000), you could have bought a very appealing 4 bed, 2.5 bath home in the gated community of Fleur Du Mont.

Conclusions

In terms of volume, the San Ramon market appears to have fallen behind. We have to remember that the availability of homes to buy has an effect on how many homes can be sold though.

145 homes were listed for sale in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with 270 in the first quarter. That is a significant reduction.

Danville shows a similar picture. 244 homes were listed in the first quarter, but only 124 in the fourth quarter.

Overall then, there appears to be a lot of confidence in the Danville market, in particular, although with a greater choice of homes, and probably some more realistic pricing, the San Ramon market would probably have had more activity.

Prices in both of these markets seem remarkably stable and this is likely to continue to be the case for the next few years until we see the end of the effects of short sales and foreclosures in our area.