July Marin Real Estate News

Home prices are continuing the move upward and sales volume is moving slightly lower as buyers are being very particular on what they will buy in this environment. There are some areas that are holding up quite well under any perceived pressure for lower prices, those being Larkspur, Greenbrae, Mill Valley and Corte Madera. We have seen some record prices for homes sold in Corte Madera in the last month. 7 Grace Court sold for $3.3 Million; a wonderful 5 Bedroom 3 bath home on one half acre built in 2002. This was the second highest sale since a $3.6 Million home on Verona Place sold in May 2007.

The chart below shows a combination of Single Family Residences combined with condos. As the condo market has slowed down dramatically, it shows the overall market as a buyers market. When you break out the Single Family Residences, however, the market is closer to a balanced market.

As of July 11 there were 967 Single Family Homes on the market. Of those 252 are in contract which is 26% of the total. That leaves 715 homes on the market and available for buyers to enter into contracts. This overall calculates as a balanced/Buyers market. If you look at City by City you can see that Mill Valley is at 37%, Corte Madera at 52% and Greenbrae at 42%. Some of the lagging communities in % in contract are San Rafael at 24%, Sausalito at 25% and Novato at 23%. Remember that real estate in Marin is Community specific so you must look at the details to ascertain the Real Estate heath of each community.

The median price for single-family, re-sale homes in Marin County rose 12.1% in June, compared to the month before, and set a new record of $1,160,000. This is 7.9% higher than last June. The average price gained 0.2%, up 0.8% year-over-year.

Sales of single-family homes were down 7.1% from May, off 9% year-over-year. Year-to-date, home sales are outpacing last year's rate. Marin is the only county in the Bay Area with higher home sales this year than last.

The median price for condos rose 1.8% to $595,000, a year-over-year gain of 2.2%. The average price gained 1.5% to $644,772, down 0.2% compared to June 2006. Condo sales dropped 1.7% from May, and were down 3.3% year-over-year.

As always, it's important to view the individual city and price range stats - see the chart below for more details.

To see the entire newsletter go to: July Marin Real Estate News

Marin Homes For Sale

Are you looking to make the move to Marin?

The following links will take you to home searches for different cities in Marin.
All search results are displayed from the highest price to the lowest price. You can scroll through pages at a time.

Belvedere homes for sale: Belvedere Homes For Sale
Corte Madera homes for sale: Corte Madera Homes For Sale
Fairfax homes for Sale: Fairfax Homes For Sale
Greenbrae homes for sale: Greenbrae Homes For Sale
Kentfield homes for sale: Kentfield Homes For Sale
Larkspur homes for sale: Larkspur Homes For Sale
Mill Valley homes for sale: Mill Valley Homes For Sale
Novato homes for Sale: Novato Homes For Sale
Ross homes for sale: Ross Homes For Sale
San Anselmo homes for sale: San Anselmo Homes For Sale
San Rafael HOMES for sale: San Rafael Homes For Sale
San Rafael CONDOS for sale: San Rafael Condos For Sale
Sausalito homes for sale: Sausalito Homes For Sale
Tiburon homes for sale: Tiburon Homes For Sale

FREE MARIN HOME SEARCH TOOLS

Free public website MLS access. You can set it up to automatically email you matching homes that fit your criteria. You can access this free MLS search here: Search for properties

If you don't yet have a Marin agent helping you, I would be more than happy to help. Please don't hesitate to contact me. I'd be more than happy to show you ANY of these homes, or give you a free home market evaluation- just give me a call!

Liz McCarthy
"High-Touch through High-Tech"
Broker, e-Pro Internet Certified
www.BayAreaRealEstateSales.com
Liz@BayAreaRealEstateSales.com
415-250-4929
Vision Real Estate

April 2007 Marin Real Estate News

MARIN HOME SALES STATISTICS

To view the stats for this month: April 2007 Marin Real Estate Home Sales

These statistics show how many homes are available for sale in Marin, and of those how many are currently in contract (either pending or contingent. For the 7th month in a row, the Marin overall real estate market is in a “Buyers Market.” We are still hovering close to a Balanced Market.

As always, it’s important to view the individual city and price range stats for more details:

Although the overall market shows that it’s a “Buyers Market’, only Greenbrae, Sausalito and Tiburon are the only cities still in that “Buyers” market. Fairfax is again (for the 2nd month in a row) in a Sellers market! This is the time to sell your Fairfax home. I believe this is the case because Fairfax has tended to be slightly less on the average sales. Kentfield, Larkspur and Mill Valley are all in a “Sellers Market.” Corte Madera, Ross, San Anselmo, and San Rafael are all in a “Balanced Market.

Homes priced from $500,000 to $1.5M are all in a “Balanced Market”. I think that the general consensus among agents currently is that there is a lack of inventory. Interest rates have been very good and there are buyers ready to purchase homes, but there is still a lack of homes that are finished and priced correctly. Multiple offers are becoming commonplace again.

If you are looking to purchase a home, it’s important that you be ready with a pre-approval letter so that you can be ready if the home that fits your requirements comes on the market. Buyers once again have to forgo some of their “must-haves” and make compromises for what they are looking for.

Recent local head lines are still selling newspapers, but when you drill down on articles you’ll find that the Marin real estate market hasn’t been affected by junk-bonds and foreclosures. For example, a recent Marin Independent Journal headline touted: Mortgage defaults up 55 % in Marin” “The number of home foreclosures initiated in Marin from January to March increased 55 percent over the first quarter of last year, a leading real estate research firm reported Monday.” but then the article continued to say: But Marin continued to enjoy one of the lowest default rates among California counties, according to DataQuick Information Systems.” DataQuick also said mortgages were least likely to go into default in Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
Defaults were most likely in Sacramento, Riverside and San Joaquin counties.

John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick, said the level of defaults and foreclosures in the Bay Area is still too low to drag down housing prices. But in the Central Valley and in Southern California's Inland Empire, there are enough foreclosures that any sign of recession could pose a big problem for housing prices there, he said.

My advice?

For buyers: the same as last month: prime property is selling quickly and, in many instances, with multiple offers. Buyers need to be prepared to make an offer immediately on prime property. That means you need to have a loan in place. For more information about buying in a multiple offer situation, call me.

For sellers: where your home is, the condition and what segment of the market it's in, entry-level, move-up or million plus, are the determining factors in whether or not you will be able to sell your home quickly and for a good price. Demand in the entry-level market has fallen, which will impact the move-up market. The million dollar plus market is pretty much immune to the sub-prime mortgage tightening.

The real estate market is very hard to generalize. It is a market made up of many micro markets. For complete information on a particular neighborhood or for an evaluation of your home's worth, call me. If I can help you devise a strategy, call or click the buying or selling link in the menu above.

I’m always searching for ways to bring my clients and readers more local real estate statistics. I’m pleased to announce the launch of my new Marin home Sales Statistics page. To view, go to: Marin Real Estate Statistics.

If you know of anyone who would like to receive this monthly newsletter or is thinking of either buying or selling a home please let me know. I’d love your referrals!