Q3 San Carlos Listings Update: An Epic Drought.

October 7, 2015

Drought

Elusive Inventory.

Three quarters are now in the books for what has been a very eventful 2015 for the San Carlos real estate market — there never seems to be a dull moment. There are a variety of statistics and metrics that one can observe to try to get a read on what's happening in the local market, but none is more telling than analyzing the number of new listings and its a stat that I post quite often on blog because it tells so much about what's going on.

New listings are the “supply” in the classic “supply and demand” economic theory — a shortage of supply means higher prices, and an abundance of inventory points to the opposite direction. Right now in San Carlos, the pipeline that feeds our inventory of homes for sale is at its lowest level in the past decade.

The chart below shows the number of new single family residence listings for the first nine months of 2015, and compares it to the same 9-month period of previous years.

SC New SFR Listings - 9:15

The number of homes to list so far in 2015 is down by a whopping 21% from just last year – which was already a lean year by historic standards.  If you compare this year to 2011 when we were starting to emerge from the Great Recession, we have 37% fewer homes to choose from.  That's essentially the definition of choking off a market.

This has to be discouraging news for buyers who have been battling low inventory levels and high competition all year. As we head in to the fourth quarter of 2015, there's no indication that this trend is going to change from what is typically a slower quarter for new listings.

If there is a sliver lining in this cloudy forecast, it's this: The market appears to be settling somewhat this fall, even despite the historically low number of new listings to choose from. Whether buyers are just exhausted with the process, or they are just less bullish on the overall state of the market, we are sensing a little relief in the pressure on the market right now all along the Peninsula.  This is a topic that we'll dig a little deeper into next week on the blog, but for now buyers that decide to stay on task this fall might be surprised at how well they do.

Thinking about buying a home in San Carlos? Let's talk about how we can get you into one before the holidays…

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