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In an article in late November, we looked at the increasing speed at which homes listed in Mountain View were being bought. At that time, there were 13 homes available in this fast-moving market. A review of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in late December showed only five.

It says a lot about a community the size of Mountain View (population about 74,000) when you can count the number of homes for sale on one hand. Bear in mind, though, that inventories everywhere tend to shrink a little during the winter months, but five total homes on the market is an amazingly low number any time of year.

Also realize that with the aggressive buying cycle happening in this city, that total of five homes today could become eight tomorrow if a few more new listings show up and then plummet to two listings the next day if buyers continue to lock in offers at a fast and furious pace.

While Mountain View’s homes inventory is currently near rock bottom, the same trend is widespread throughout Silicon Valley: lots of qualified and eager buyers fighting for a shrinking number of homes and paying 5 to 15 percent above the asking prices.

More than asking price

The median list price/median sold price ratio in Mountain View is not as wide as that of a number of other Silicon Valley communities. Still, if you’re entering this market, you should be ready to spend somewhat above the figure you see on an MLS sheet.

In the third quarter of 2014, buyers paid a median price of $1,511,000 for homes with a median listing price of $1,398,000, for a premium of $113,000. Here are some other quarters and the positive median price difference homeowners received upon selling their properties:

Q2 2014: $55,556

Q1 2014: $172,500

Q4 2013: $211,056

Q3 2013: $68,767

Q2 2013: $141,556

Q1 2013: $93,500

Based on how fast homes are being bought, it’s possible the inventory will remain low in Mountain View for the foreseeable future. If you look at the trend in average days on the market (DOM), Quarters 3 and 4 of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, had an average DOM of 33.3. All quarters since then have averaged 18.5 days.

The five homes currently available here range in price from $399,900 to $1,999,800. That’s more affordable than homes in many other cities in the Valley, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be any easier to buy one.

Hadar Guibara is a Realtor with Sereno Group of Palo Alto. She can be reached at hadar@serenogroup.com.

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  1. Thank you Hadar for the informative article on “Dramatic decrease in Mountain View’s housing inventory”. As always it is a matter of supply and demand and we know that the demand for housing in the Mountain View area and communities north are scarce for much needed inventory. Great information!!

  2. Yeah, great article when you talk about a booming housing market but only the wealthy will be able to buy, middle class is no longer able to buy in Mountain View. For the renters the awful truth is that the City is literally allowing greedy landlords to increase rents due to no rent control, to astronomical prices, you have landlords evicting long standing renters so that they can get higher rents for their property. Just a vicious cycle. It is extremely frightening what is going on.

  4. @OMV, it’s not the renters fault that Google and a lot of other powerful companies setup shop here. It’s not there fault that space in a peninsula such as ours has limited space.

    There are a lot of buildings being built all over San Jose, Near Kaiser and Evergreen area.

    Unfortunately, we can’t house everyone of the liberals from Detroit here, in this liberal haven. Nor can we house all the illegal aliens in our sanctuary city.

  5. To the Mountain View Voice: I was under the understanding that the poster from Monta Loma had his(?) posts automatically removed.

    What happened?

  6. It is not a balanced measurement to count houses for sale as inventory, while building thousands of new multiple rentals.

    Adding more new high density rental units will only make the cost of owning go higher and higher, and sprawl larger and larger.

    Imagine the difference in living in a single family property, where owners do not need to fight for a parking spot, stand in line to wash their cloths, and fear that any one of fifty neighbors could fall asleep and burn their house to the ground.

    I wonder how many renters in four story wood stuctures will need to die, before apartments builders will be forced to give up wood as a building method.

    Be sure appartments will become condos as they age into instability.

  8. There are several new ‘for sale’ (owner occupied) housing develoments in Slater area. Easy Street – multi-story condo units near Central and by the corner of Ada and Minaret Ave.

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