January Home Sales Report For Los Altos

Home sales in Los Altos (LA) and Los Altos Hills (LAH) dropped sharply in January, on both a year-to-year and month-to-month basis.

Nevertheless, there are indicators suggesting demand for housing remains solid and a rebound may be already in the horizon.

The drop in sales in January came in as a big contrast to December, when sales remained strong toward the end of the year. Last month, nine single-family homes changed hand in Los Altos—a drop of 36 percent from a year ago and 65 percent from December.

In Los Altos Hills, four homes were sold, which was the same as last year but represents a 56 percent drop from December's sales.

While the sales have dropped sharply, the median home price in Los Altos is down by only 0.9 percent from last year, and by 6 percent from December. On the other hand, the median home price of Los Altos Hills is up by 42 percent from last year and by 19 percent from the previous month.

It should be noted, however, that the rise in price in Los Altos Hills was attributed to the sale of a couple of high-end homes ($7.5 million and $3.15 million) in the area—it doesn’t necessarily mean the price of all homes has gone up by that magnitude.

A couple of bright spots worth noting: Both the average days on market and percentage of list price received have improved this month. These are two important indictors of the state of the market. In January, buyers on average paid 98.6 percent of what sellers in Los Altos asked for, and 95.05 percent in Los Altos Hills. Those compare with  95.26 percent and 93.64 percent, respectively, in the previous month.

And the average days on market has dropped from 98 to 44 days in Los Altos, and from 135 to 90 days in Los Altos Hills from December to January. All these suggest that buyers are motivated and are more willing to pay closer to the asking price.

January is typically a slow month, as people have been focusing on the holidays. (Homes closed in January usually go under contract in December.) The decline in sales can be partly blamed on the drop in inventory during the holidays, and thus shouldn’t be interpreted as a major shift of the market sentiment. In fact, I’m beginning to see more buyers and sellers returning to the market in the past few weeks. How the market fares in February will provide better insight on where we might be heading this spring or summer. Stay tuned for more!

January 2011 Home Sales Statistics

Single-Family Residences

City

Sales

Change from last year

Average Day on Market

Median price

Change from last year

% listed price received

Los Altos

9

-36%

44

$1,450,000

-0.9%

98.60

LAH

4

unchanged

90

$2,775,000

42%

95.05

Source: MLS Listings

Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.