Saratoga Home Sales and Market Trends - November 2022

Here’s some encouraging news, home prices in Saratoga are up from last month! With all the economic forecasts of home values declining, it’s great to see that our little village in Silicon Valley is holding steady! Both single family homes and condominiums/townhomes saw increased sale prices and significant decreases in the number of days it took to sell a home, month over month. What great news for homeowners and also key for buyers to be aware of, as there may be more competition than in previous months!

For single family homes, we saw the median sale price for the city of Saratoga jump 14% since last month. November’s median sale price in Saratoga now stands at $3.58M, which is higher than October’s median sale price of $3.13M although still less than last year’s median price in November 2021 of $3.76M. See the chart below for more details.

For townhomes and condominiums, we saw the median sale price for the city of Saratoga go up by over 50%, but with only one sale last month, it’s hard to draw too many conclusions without more sales! That one sale was $1.94M, in contrast to October’s median sale price of $1.27M and November 2021’s median sale price of $1.24M. See the chart below for more details.

Typically in late fall we see prices dip a little bit due to seasonality, but this year we have so few homes available for sale compared to the number of buyers looking to purchase a home, that despite rising interest rates, home prices are holding steady and actually up since last month. It comes down to supply vs demand, and when supply (home inventory) is low and demand is high, we see increased competition. For example, if we compare November 2022 with November 2021 for single family homes, we have 64% less homes listed for sale (25 in 2021 vs only 9 in 2022). 

The answer is definitely yes! We don’t have the crazy high demand we had earlier this year, and there are many home buyers that have hit “pause” in their home search. The hesitation to buy a home in this market is due to many factors related to the economy, job security, fears of a looming recession, and on and on. But even despite those on “pause”, there are still people that need housing, and those that need to sell their homes. 

So that brings us to the next point and that is that pricing a home properly for this market is key. 

Home buyers are looking for value, and will wait until they find it. Unlike the recent past, we see many more price adjustments where homes start out a little too high, and then need to be adjusted if it’s not selling as quickly as the norm of the market. We see that when we look at the difference between the list price and the sale price. A year ago in November 2021, sellers were getting 111% of their asking price, but just like in October 2022, we saw sellers getting 97% of their asking price for single family homes. 

Another gauge of our market is seeing how quickly homes are purchased. In October we saw a huge spike in how long it took to sell a home (48 median days on market). In November, that number of median days on the market went to only 13 days - that means that many homes sold in less than 2 weeks, which is phenomenal given the worries many have about this market.