Palo Alto: Month in Review - March

The median price of Bay Area homes rose drastically over the past year.  Palo Alto once again shows a strong demand for houses – multiple offers are not uncommon today.  An especially high number of multiple offers are seen on sales in the under $1.5M price range, where inventory is relatively low and the highest number of buyers are competing for houses.  Here are just two examples of recent local market activity:

• A house in the Barron Park area listed at $1.2M was sold with 18 offers at $1.375M with a full-cash, non-contingent offer and closed escrow in less than 14 days.
• A 100+ year fixer-upper in Professorville was listed at $1.125M and sold at a much higher price with 11 offers in less than a week.

We are quickly approaching the spring selling season.  As of end of March, there were 44 pending sales in Palo Alto.  If this is any indicator of things to come, we will see an increase in market activity with first-time buyers still driving the market.  South Palo Alto accounted for 13 out of 27 Palo Alto March sales.  Out of these 13 houses sold in South Palo Alto, 10 went at higher than asking price.

Overall the Bay Area is seeing one of the nation’s biggest gains and we seem to be making some great strides from month to month.  In most real estate offices, multiple offers are no longer rare.  However we have to temper this optimism with the fact that unemployment figures, though improved, are still staggering, and there are no guarantees we won’t see further downward dips in the economy as we continue a conservative recovery.

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