San Carlos Real Estate Report Card: February ’09

March 3, 2009

reportcard

San Carlos Real Estate

Hanging in there…

If you recall from the post I wrote last month about how 2009 was shaping up versus 2008, the real estate market in San Carlos got out of the blocks really slooooooowly this year.  At the end of January, we were almost 60% behind the same period in 2008 — and 2008 was already considered to be a down year.    We definitely started the year out in a big hole.

February '09

Looking at the pending sales heading into February, I estimated that 12 homes would close escrow this past month — in reality only 9 of those homes closed in February.  But while that result isn't stellar, it's not totally surprising to see this kind of a fall-off, especially given the condition of the economy.   And even with only 9 home sales, we were able to close that 60% gap just a little bit.

2009 Year-to-Date (through February)

There's an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. This pictures will easily fetch several thousand:

sc-ytd-feb09

San Carlos YTD Sales: Through Feb 09

Let's dive into these numbers in a little more detail:

  • Home Sales14 homes have sold to date in 2009.  This equates to a decrease of 44% compared to the 25 that closed escrow during the same period in 2008.
  • Average Sales Price:   The average price of all homes sold so far in 2009 is $1,060,679.  That’s a decrease of 13% from the average price of $1,219,276 during the same stretch in 2008.
  • Total Sales Revenue: The total volume of homes sold in 2009 so far is $14,849,500.    That’s a drop of 51.3% from $30,481,888 for the same period in ‘08.  That's a big drop…
  • Days on Market.    It took an average of 51 Days for these 14 homes to sell in ‘09.   Compare that to 34 days for the same period in ‘08.

What does this mean?   Obviously, fewer homes are selling this year than last and they're taking longer to sell.   But the huge drop in sales volume suggests that less expensive homes are making up the bulk of the sales volume so far this year.

If you're interested in the details, here's the home sales data that comprised both periods:

San Carlos YTD Sales: Through Feb '09

San Carlos YTD Sales: Through Feb '08

Looking Ahead

Going into March, there is a total of 26 homes in various stages of “Sale Pending” in San Carlos.  Since 26 homes sold in March '08,  a minimum of 15 of these will need to close in March just to maintain the current gap of 44% below '08.  The higher percentage of those 26 that close, the more we'll close that gap.   I'll issue another “Report Card” at the end of March, so tune in then to see how things turned out!

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