Sales Improved in Spring 2012; Listings Steady

My last post highlighted the trend in short sale listings and sales between Half Moon Bay and Montara.  This post shows the trend in overall listings and sales on the Half Moon Bay Coastside with the short sale listings and sales broken out – for single family homes and townhouse/condos together.

Short sales (well, all distressed sales which includes the REO properties) still represent a small portion of our overall market, meaning that we have weathered the housing down turn better than some other California markets.  Understandably, for many people it does not feel like that!

Short Sales to Total Sales  – June 2011 – 4% of total sales; May 2012 – 24% of total sales.  That is significant in my opinion.   While overall sales remain fairly steady from a year ago (blue color on graph), short sales are increasing, so far (red color on graph).

Overall Sales – June 2011 – 26; May 2012 – 23.   These numbers include the short sales.  The highest month of overall sales in the last twelve months was March 2012 with 31 sales (this Spring).  The lowest month of overall sales in the last twelve months was February 2012 with 10 sales.  Since sales activity had been pretty quiet for most of the second half of 2011,  increased sales activity was noticeable this Spring.  This is why it may feel like the market is picking up a bit.

Overall Listings – Coastside homes for sale remains fairly steady from a year ago.  There were 121 homes for sale in June 2011 and 117 homes for sale in May 2012.  However, the short sale listings have doubled in the last year.  This spring it felt like we’re back in a “hot” market as many new listings quickly went into contract within the first week.  We continue to need listings that are priced well and presented as best as possible.

What this means is that we remain in a transitional market with distressed properties continuing to play a role.  Sellers need to market aggressively and prepare their home for sale strategically (with their Realtor), and buyers need to do their homework to make sure they’re getting the best for their real estate investment.  Some pockets of the market have inventory and others are scarce.  We had a blip of activity in April and May, and we will see if that continues through the summer.

Source:  MLS Listings, Inc.
Percentages are approximate.

  •  Light Blue – Closed Sales that were NOT short sales
  • Tan – Active and Pending Listings that are NOT short sales
  • Red – Closed Short Sales
  • Blue – Active and Pending Short Sale Listings

You can search by Short Sale Listings only, REO only, neighborhood, City, and more on this site if you wish.  All search data is directly from MLS Listings, Inc. via the search tool I use, Diverse Solutions.  Feel free to let me know if you ever have any difficulties getting the information you want from the search tool on this site.