As Mountain View home prices over the last four years have risen steadily, so has the speed at which buyers are snatching houses off the market. While in many U.S. home markets houses can languish on the Multiple Listing Service for three to six months or more, Mountain View homes averaged less than 16 days on the market from June to October this year.
Higher prices clearly don’t form an obstacle to buyers. The average square-foot price for homes here was $587 in January 2011 and has grown consistently in the ensuing months to hit $990 per square foot in October 2014. For the last nine months, the average hasn’t gone below $870.
People want to live and invest in Mountain View properties, and buyers are coming into the market with the kind of money that results in quick sales. Look at the average days on the market for homes in June through October for the last four years:
2011: 30.6 days
2012: 20.0
2013: 17.2
2014: 15.4
Buyers willing to pay more
Even with rising prices, homes in Mountain View are still priced quite moderately by the standards of some Silicon Valley cities. Currently there are 13 homes/condos available on the MLS, ranging from $405,000 to $3,295,000. Nine of these are priced at under $1 million. Only one is listed at more than $2 million.But these are just listing prices. Homes here rarely sell for what the owner initially asks. In fact, in only three of the last 46 months did the price paid for homes go under the asking price. The last time was in January 2012.
Through October 2014, buyers paid an average of 11.13 percent over listing prices.
Low inventory
One reason Mountain View homes tend to sell so fast is that there are so few of them available. The desire to buy hasn’t diminished, though the inventory has. Compare population and homes inventory of Mountain View to neighbors Sunnyvale and Los Altos Hills (population numbers are approximate).Mountain View has a population of 74,000 and 13 homes up for sale. Sunnyvale, with about double the population, has more than four times the number of homes currently listed, with 54. Los Altos Hills’ population is just 7,900, about a tenth of Mountain View’s, yet 20 homes are on the market there.
Statistics can be interpreted in a number of ways, but two things appear clear: Mountain View homeowners in large numbers are staying put, and buyers are ready and able to move in fast when one of them start stirring.
Hadar Guibara is a Realtor with Sereno Group of Palo Alto. She can be reached at hadar@serenogroup.com.
