Marin median sale price and volume of sales. Click to enlarge
Somewhere between Lady Gaga's Super Bowl performance on February 5th and her Grammy performance with local rockers Metallica on the 12th, the Marin County real estate market woke up to 2017! In a flurry of activity, pre-approvals are on the rise, stagers are booked solid through Spring, and inventory is starting to trickle out. We are off and running!
The usual questions about the market are still being asked…will prices rise or fall, will we start to see buyers ease up on their desire to purchase a piece of Marin dirt, or will interest rates and rising prices finally start to put a chill on an otherwise hot market? In 2016 we saw spurts of activity spikes throughout the year, but most months (January, July, August, September and November, in particular) we saw declines. Big gains in June (46%) and October (12%) but otherwise, month over month statistics were down. We can attribute these truncated spurts in the traditional buying season to weather, perhaps some uncertainty surrounding the November elections, and the overall economy.
2017 may have its own quirky cycles and we will just have to see how these go, but one needs to look no further than the backlog of buyers to know that whatever is put out there will be swooped up quickly, as long as sellers don’t get too bold in their pricing. At some point inventory will be absorbed by this backlog and then perhaps we can get to a more normal market, or one that favors buyers. Unfortunately, we are not seeing a deluge of inventory at this writing, so the market remains competitive and adhering to the general economic principles of supply and demand.
January was a particularly slow month by historical standards. 71 properties sold throughout Marin County at a median sales price of $1,100,000 (as compared to 90 sales and a median of $952,500 same time last year). Here's a look at how each market fared...
Single Family Homes Sold in January 2017 vs January 2016
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Marin homes saw a 15% increase in median sale price compared with last January. Although the number sold decreased, the market is showing some signs for a healthy first quarter. The luxury markets of Tiburon and Kentfield each had positive gains, notably Tiburon, which had three more sales than it did in January of 2016.
The most expensive home sold in Marin in January was 7 Acela Drive in Tiburon, which sold for $5,750,000, after 157 days on the market
Trends of Homes Sold in Marin in Varying Price Ranges in January
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2016 Overall Median Single Family Home Sale Price By County
If you are interested in finding out more about the value of your Marin County home, or would like more information about a particular Marin town or neighborhood, we invite you to contact The Costa Group!
