MLS Listings/aculist present year-end review of 2019 housing market

Santa Clara County’s 2019 housing market did not perform as well as in the previous year, but there were some shining stars. Real estate is local and “there are some gems” within the county, according to Mark Messimer, director of Outreach/educational Services, and Michelle Ronco, senior product marketing manager with MLS Listings subsidiary Aculist Inc.

Ronco and Messimer recently presented a mini year-end review of the 2019 Santa Clara County housing market to members of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors. Their full year-end review can be viewed on Youtube video.

Countywide, 2019 sales volume was down slightly. The median sales price in December was $1,232,500, down from $1,260,000 the previous month, but up from $1,150,000 in December 2018. Inventory rose since December 2018 to a high of 1,810 single-family homes in June 2019, then slowly fell to 539 in December. The median days on market hovered at 21.

Homes sold in 2019 only exceeded 2018 in the months of July and December. “There were just not as many homes sold,” said Ronco.

December 2019 was a good month, as yearover-year sales increased in cities in the local trade association’s service area - in Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno. Sales also increased in San Jose, but Campbell saw sales fall 37 percent from 27 sold in 2018 to 17 homes sold in 2019.

Overall, 2019 prices in Santa Clara County were not as good as 2018, but they did have a strong fourth quarter, according to Ronco. With the exception of 2017, which was off by about $5,000, Ronco indicated Q4 of 2019 had the best December. When compared to 2018, the 2019 median price in Cupertino and San Jose rose 2 percent to $2,290,000 and $1,070,000, respectively. Saratoga’s median rose 3 percent to $2,672,500, and Palo Alto’s median rose16 percent to $2,970,000.

Compared to the previous year, 2019 saw list price reductions in all five MLS Listings counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa

Cruz, Monterey and San Benito. In Santa Clara County there were 3,122 price reductions of both single-family homes and condos. Ronco said big decreases in sales to list price happened there in the first months of 2019, but ended at zero percent in November and December. For December 2019, percent list price received hovered at 100 percent, with Cupertino and Los Altos at 101 percent, and Los Gatos and Saratoga at 99 percent.

Ronco said a 10year comparison of the median price from 2009 to 2019 shows there have been some dynamic market places that have had a dramatic rise, most notably in Cupertino, where the 2019 median price of $2.3 million more than doubled from $1.075 million in 2009. In Los Altos, the median price increased 114 percent, from $1.5 million to $3.2 million. Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain

View, Santa Clara, San Jose and Milpitas also saw their median prices increase substantially in the past decade.

Looking back five years ago since the recovery in 2014, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Gatos, San Jose, Campbell also saw significant gains,” which sets the tone that there is quite a bit of value and vitality,” remarked Messimer.

In their video on Youtube.com both Ronco and Messimer dig deeper into the numbers and point to zip codes that continue to have a strong market net over time. “It really depends on where you are,” said Ronco.

To view the year-end housing market video, consumers can go to Youtube.com, enter

“MLS Listings” in the Search box and click on the videos link in the main navigation.