530 Irven Court in Palo Alto Sells 5% Over Asking Price

530 Irvin Court in Palo Alto was listed on February 20, 2012 for $1,598,000 and sold for $1,680,000 on March 12, 2012, a 5% gain in sales price from asking price.   The Barron Park home features 5 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, a gourmet kitchen with large island, full basement with media/game room, granite counters and a private yard.  The home is approximately 3,624 square feet.  Palo Alto real estate is continuing a robust first quarter of sales that are over asking price.

Open House This Weekend in Palo Alto

Everybody, don’t forget to come by the open house at 4105 Park Blvd in Palo Alto this Sunday from 1:30-4:30pm. It’s hard to find a home in the Palo Alto school district for under a million dollars, but we have it to show this weekend. 3 Bedrooms, 2 full bath, 1,450 square feet on a 7,000 square foot lot. It’s a short walk to the park and kids play area. Plus there is a large back patio with a huge hot tub. A great home for entertaining and families of all ages.

To see more about this property, click on the tour factory link

Thanks and I hope to see you there.

Palo Alto Real Estate Update

The numbers are strong for real estate in Palo Alto with this month’s sales figures.  Watch the video to see all key sales numbers for the month of January 2012 compared to January 2011.

Palo Alto homes sales going way over asking price in first month of 2012

Desirable Palo Alto started off the New Year with many home sales exceeding asking price by crazy amounts. The year began with a total of 21 sales in the first 3 weeks of the month compared to 17 total closings in January 2011 and, on top of that, many of the homes were sold significantly higher than the listing price.

Palo Alto luxury real estate is on fire right now and some of the homes were high double digits over asking and most had multiple offers.  I don’t believe this is a case of real estate agents under pricing the home with the hopes of multiple offers as all the homes have been priced very fairly for the size, location and condition.  I think it’s a case of buyers with pent up energy looking for homes and just not enough inventory out there.  Going back to my days of basic economics, high demand and low supply means… overbidding.

This is a good sign for sellers of Palo Alto homes, especially for the homeowners who have been sitting on the fence and waiting to get out from under water as now is definitely the time to sell.

There are more, but just a couple of examples of recent Palo Alto homes for sale with high ratios of sales versus asking price are:

185 Walter Hays listed at $1,398,000 and sold for $1,655,000 in 7 days (18.4 % over asking price)

769 Rosewood Drive listed at $1,050,000 and sold for $1,515,000 in 4 days (44.3% over)

971 Maddux Drive listed at $1,195,000 and sold for $1,361,000 in a week (14.1 % over)

I work on a lot of off market sales too and information throughout our offices are further verifying the asking price to sale price ratios listed above.  Off market, or off  MLS, are probably 20-30% of sales happening in Palo Alto, Atherton and Menlo Park, so make sure your agent is well connected to get you in the game, or call me.

Palo Alto Starts Off 2012 With A Surge of Home Sales

Palo Alto real estate is having a happy 2012!

Yes, I know it’s only been just over two weeks into the new year, but sales in Palo Alto have been very strong compared to the past couple of years.  The entire month of January 2011 had a total of 17 closed sales,  January 2010 had 23 closed sales and January of 2009 had only 12 closed sales for the entire month.  Well, so far in the first two weeks of January 2012, there has already been 19 closed sales as of  January 16th.  Obviously, it’s no guarantee that the rest of the month or year will stay on the same surge, but it’s definitely a good sign for real estate and the economy.

There is also a general buzz around our offices at the activity that is happening and the amount of buyers that are out there aggressively looking to buy or in the process of buying.  This hasn’t happened in several years so we are all working harder than ever to make sure our buyers don’t miss out on any opportunities, as they are going quickly! My guess is that this will cause prices to rise due to the number of buyers compared to the number of homes available for sale.  A good sign for sellers as I would suggest getting your home on the market within the next two months to take advantage of the situation.

If you are interested in listing your home for sale or finding a home, please give me a call.  The above numbers don’t include the very active “off market” transactions that are happening at a higher than normal rate as well.  We have a nice supply of those too!

Palo Alto Real Estate Takes a Breath

Palo Alto real estate is still hopping, however, the market has been cooling off a bit in recent weeks, as more homes are available and demand is less. Some prices even moved a bit lower as a result. Expect this trend to continue as more inventory hits the market.  Palo Alto has a lot of luxury real estate and is always an area in demand due to the tech executives and companies that call Palo Alto home.  In our recent reports, the median price in Palo Alto 94301 is $1,597,000 and average days on market is only 61 days.  Just a couple weeks ago, the median price was over $2.1 million so this shows the inventory in that sweet spot is fairly non existent.   The surprising number this week is the percentage of homes with a price decrease, which is 35%.  That’s a big number for such a strong area.  This means that the “in demand” homes have sold quickly and it’s probably the less desirable properties that are still sitting on the market.  It’s still a sellers market in Palo Alto and the average price per square foot is at $934 and I’ve seen homes that are asking way over that price per square foot, but are tending to sit if they go over $1,000.

High End Homes on Peninsula are selling.

In case you missed it, here is an excerpt from a recent article about the high end housing here on the Peninsula and how well it is selling.  Los Altos Hills  has had the big sale while Palo Alto is consistent and almost a sellers market.  Atherton and Menlo Park and moving along nicely with Atherton getting the high end sales.

Mark Zuckerberg buys in Palo Alto!

Mark Zuckerberg's New Home

Well, it’s only fitting that Mark Zuckerberg finally buys a house in Palo Alto.  After all, he has made billions of dollars while starting his company in Palo Alto, he might as well officially call it home and buy where he works.  Soon, he will be working in Menlo Park, but Palo Alto has the claim to fame on tech exec’s homes.

The king of Facebook’s home was purchases for just around $7.0 million dollars and the Palo Alto luxury real estate market continues to improve with this sale.  The house is nice, and within close proximity to his work and in a neighborhood where he won’t be bothered as the town is full of tech kings.  Let’s see how long he lives in it or if he calls this home his main residence, after all, a guy like him might just buy the house to keep the press/news world looking in one direction while he secretly buys a much bigger house somewhere else.

Here are some pictures of Zuckerberg’s home, it is very “Palo Alto ish” and nice.  If he wants to buy in Atherton, I have the perfect $6.9 million dollar home listed that he might want to look at due to the size, privacy and great yard for parties or hanging around the pool with the Facebook family.

Call me Mark!

Palo Alto Home Sales = Multiple Offers

Every week, we have staff meetings to discuss listings, sales etc. and we are seeing a change in the market that I thought would be interesting to pass along to all of you.  I know you’ve seen me write for the past couple of months that the published stats will start to support what I am seeing on the market.  Here is an example of just one segment of the market as reported in last weeks meeting, and this is only from Alain Pinel.

1. 5 offers received on 2553 Emerson street in Midtown Palo Alto with 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1784 sf.  Listed at $1,398,000 and went  pending within a week on the market. Top offers went over $1.5M.

2. 4 offers on 2671 Emerson with 4 bedroom, 2 bath listed at $1,648,000, sold to an all cash buyer. No contingency, as is, quick close clean offer.

3. 6 offers on 3250 Murry way with 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath 1548sf, listed at $1,098,000 sold within a weeks.

4. All cash buyer bought 2340 Dartmouth house for its tear down value and will rebuild it. It was listed at $1,295,000 last year. Sold off the market.

5. Approx. 3 offers on 3715 Whitsell with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath listed at $895,000.

6. One all cash offer was received on 3145 Emerson new construction house. Seller rejected the low ball offer.

7. Multiple interested parties are taking disclosure packages for 601 Matadero.  Multiple offers to follow.

The same thing is happening in Menlo Park, Atherton and areas along the Peninsula.

Market Focus: South Palo Alto

December and January were very slow – for two months the Palo Alto housing market was in a dormant state. Only six homes have changed hands since the beginning of the year in South Palo Alto. A year ago at this time, many homes were languishing on the market as buyers stayed on the sidelines, worrying about their jobs, the sharp decline in their 401k accounts, and whether housing prices would ever rise again.

While no one claims the housing market is out of the woods yet, an unusual dynamic is occurring in many communities around the Bay Area and in our own backyard. Buyers and sellers have realized that neither of them will benefit from rising interest rates, and now we have a market with rising inventory and many active, well-qualified buyers looking for houses. Open houses are very busy. Most of this year’s sales happened within the last two weeks. Today when we write this article, there are 19 pending sales in South Palo Alto and 21 active listings. Well-maintained, reasonably priced homes in the median price point or lower, sell with multiple offers. One recent sale generated 13.

South Palo Alto is on the lower range of the overall Palo Alto housing market, and today it gets a disproportionate level of activity comparing with the rest of the city. In the entire city of Palo Alto there are 36 “pending sales” and more than half of them (19 as mentioned above) are in South Palo Alto.

There are a lot of areas in all price ranges here in the SF Bay Area and that’s what makes this such an interesting real estate market.