Bay Area home prices jumped 11% compared to a year earlier. With little supply and high demand the housing market continues its robust price gains. Click on the link to read the full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/03/24/bay-area-home-prices-pop-oakland-houses-sell-fast.html
Ryan Whitelaw, MAI has created a video to help borrowers, trustees, heirs, attorneys, and accountants know what items the commercial appraiser will need in order to best perform a commercial appraisal. Please click here to see the video: https://youtu.be/WvGCBSbf3ys
Tim Edwards, Pacific Appraisers Chief Residential Appraiser, will be co-instructing at the Society of Chief Appraisers conference on November 21st in Oakland. For more details please click here: http://www.societyofchiefappraisers.org/enroll-now/
Pacific Appraisers’ Ryan Whitelaw MAI and team will be attending the Appraisal Institute annual fall conference in San Francisco. See below for more details:
Friday, October 16, 2015
San Francisco Marriott
780 Mission Street (at 4th Street), San Francisco
ANNUAL FALL CONFERENCE celebrates 65 consecutive years in San Francisco!
12 Breakout Sessions featuring over 30 presenters
Retail Market Update
Collateral Underwriter
Supporting Residential Adjustments
Medical Marijuana and Commercial Real Estate
Cool Appraisal Technology: Tools, Tips & Tricks
How to Diversify and Build a “Bubble-Proof” Business
Residential Market Update: The Impact of Millennials on the RE Market
Lessons Learned from Very Complex and Highly Unusual Valuation Experiences
Changing the Game: Redevelopment of Sports-Related Venues
Lessons from California Litigation Involving Appraisers
Developing Green and High Performance Real Estate
State of the Profession
Ryan Whitelaw, MAI and Tim Edwards from Pacific Appraisers will be speaking at the Northern California Chief Appraisers meeting on May 6th in San Francisco. For more information on the Society of Chief Appraisers click here. To receive the flier for the upcoming Northern California Chief Appraisers meeting please respond to this post or send us an email.
The median home price in Santa Cruz County was $775,000 in March of 2015. This us up a whopping 15.7% from a year earlier. The number of sales in March were 123 which is 7% higher than a year earlier. There are currently 255 active listings which is down 35.6% from a year earlier (where is that inventory of homes????). We are still in a sellers market and until we get more inventory it should stay that way.
Tim Edwards, Chief Residential Appraiser at Pacific Appraisers, will be on the panel discussing the new Collateral Underwriter and its impact on appraisers. To get more information on the event and topics that will be covered click here.
By Ken Harney
Excerpts: Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff…says Zestimates are “a good starting point” but that nationwide Zestimates have a “median error rate” of about 8%.
Shoppers, sellers and buyers routinely quote Zestimates to realty agents – and to one another – as gauges of market value. If a house for sale has a Zestimate of $350,000, a buyer might challenge the sellers’ list price of $425,000. Or a seller might demand to know from potential listing brokers why they say a property should sell for just $595,000 when Zillow has it at $685,000.
My comments: Ken Harney is well know, nationally syndicated real estate writer. We are hoping that a lot of people read this article so they understand the pitfalls of relying too heavily on Zillow. Zillow does have a great data base of sales and wonderful graphs, but their Zestimates have a large margin of error. AVM’s like Zillow work best in conforming neighborhoods with homes that are less than 10 years old.
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20150208-story.html
What do you think about Zillow? Post your comments.
Here is a great article with charts and graphs for housing trends in Silicon Valley: San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties. It goes into housing supply and median values for both single family residences and condos/townhomes. Click here to see article.
Single Family Residential Report
The median value for single-family homes in Santa Cruz County took a slight dip from last month, but is still above the November 2013 median value. The following is a snap shot of recent market statistics covering the single family housing market in Santa Cruz County. The analysis presents a broad-brush overview of market indicators such as median sales price, month’s of inventory, and sales volume. 
Median Sales and List Price
The median selling price of a Santa Cruz County single-family home increased last month on a year-to-year comparison. The median sales price of such a home was $663,750 in November 2013 versus $685,250 in November 2014, a boost of 3.2%. Last month, the median sales price was $716,615.
Source: MLSListings.com (As of 12/11/2014 )
Month’s Supply
The inventory of active listings has long been a vital leading indicator of housing market dynamics. Ultimately, the inventory ratio provides the best predictor of near-term market direction and one of the major keys to understanding price shifts in the market.
There was a 2.9 month supply reported in November 2014. This is down from last year and below the historical average of approximately 6.0 months. At three months of inventory, the median sales price will likely continue to climb.
Days-On-Market
Another indicator of market dynamics is the number of days a property is on the market prior to being sold. As demand increases and supply shrinks – the time it takes to sell a property will decrease. For days on market, the median tends to be a better indicator as the average can easily be skewed.
Source: MLSListings.com (As of 12/11/2014 )
Historically, days-on-market for a home in Santa Cruz County ranged from 15 to 128 days, and averaged 47 days. Currently, the November 2014 median days on market is 36 days, comparable to the 34 days reported in for the same time period last year.
Sale-To-List Ratio
Limited supply and pent up demand will tighten the ratio of sale to list price. Historically, sellers have been able to command approximately 98.0% of asking. The November 2014 sale-to-list ratio is 98.8%, which is just slightly above the 98.2% reported in November 2013.
Number of Sales and Number of Active/Pending
The volume of single-family home sales was down slightly. Last month, 124 single-family homes were sold in Santa Cruz County, compared with the 138 sales in November 2013; a decrease of about 10.1%. Active and pending homes have seen a more significant jump. In November 2014, there were 351 active listings compared to the 498 reported in November 2013. The decline reflects a shrinking inventory, but also is indicative of the winter cycle.
Conclusion
For those of us in the real estate market, it comes as no surprise that there is a seasonal pattern to home sales data. In general, the changes that we’re seeing are typical for a winter pattern. Values appear to be stabilizing somewhat in the Santa Cruz County market. The year-over-year growth for November was 3.2%, and month’s supply has been on the rise. As of right now, the current market activity supported by historical trends suggests slow but modest price increases in the Santa Cruz County single family residential market.