Los Altos and Los Altos Hills Home Sales Pick Up From January, but Still Flat from Last Year

The housing market in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills has begun to show signs of bouncing back from January, according to the latest home sales report from February.

The overall sales, however, remain soft and have yet to return to the pre-holidays level.

Another encouraging sign is that buyers in February paid much closer to the asking price as compared with the previous months. The rise in the percentage of list price received, as it is called, suggests that demand for housing is getting stronger, in spite of the softness in the market.

In February, a total of 16 single family homes changed hand in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, representing a 23 percent jump from January, though it is still much lower than last year and a few months ago (see table below).

In Los Altos, we also witnessed a big jump in the median home price from $1.45 million to $1.63 million, or a whopping 13 percent from January. Nevertheless, the price is pretty much flat if compared with the same time last year. And in Los Altos Hills, the median home price did drop significantly in February—both on a month-to-month and a year-to-year basis. But since volume has been light in Los Altos Hills, the median price doesn’t necessarily represent the market well.

Besides the jump in median price, percentage of list price received—another important indicator of the state of the market—continued to improve. In February, buyers on average paid 99.59 percent and 96.5 percent of the list price in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills respectively—the highest since last August.  A higher percentage of list price received usually suggests a higher demand for housing, that buyers had to pay more in order to get the house.

The local housing market has been soft since January. It is thus encouraging to see that both the price and sales have begun to pick up. I should also point out that the softness in sales was partly driven by a tight inventory. With more buyers and sellers are returning to the market, home sales are expected to continue to improve as we’re entering into the spring and summer seasons.

February 2011 Home Sales Statistics

Single-Family Homes

City

Sales

Change from last year

Average Day on Market

Median price

Change from last year

% listed price received

Los Altos

13

-31%

52

1,632,500

-0.5%

99.59

LAH

3

-40%

106

2,200,000

-21%

96.05

Source: MLS Listings

Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.