With mortgage rates at record lows, millennial buyers are taking advantage. In fact, they were responsible for a majority of the record number of mortgage applications in 2020. As reported by Forbes, San José was the most popular metropolitan landing spot for millennial homebuyers. Rounding out the top 10: Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, Buffalo, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Austin, Pittsburgh, and New York City.
A variety of factors can affect home values — location, architectural style, curb appeal, square footage, condition, views, amenities, extra rooms, parking, decks and yards, privacy, lot size, demographics, environmental factors, and so on. And there is typically a wide or even vast spectrum of homes in any given market area, especially a large one like the Bay Area. This can lead to mean or average values that don’t tell the full story because of fluctuations at either end.
That’s why it’s important to look at median values, which fall smack in the middle of all sales. Median values can be affected by factors unrelated to fair market value, and anomalous fluctuations are common, especially in smaller and/or very expensive markets over shorter time periods. But over the long term, they are a much more reliable indicator of actual market value.
Without a specific comparative market analysis, it can be hard to know the factors impacting a particular property. For example, looking at these charts, median house values for Napa and Sonoma Counties were limited to homes on lots of two acres or less. Not every town or city within the Bay Area is included here, so please contact us for more!
Global pandemic, shelter in place, mass unemployment, empty office buildings, small business collapse, families on the move, destructive wildfires, an anxious presidential election, interest rates at historic lows, stock markets at new highs, IPO mania, vaccination rollout, and a real estate market on steroids with median sales prices hitting new peaks — particularly for luxury homes.
2020 was a lot of things, and most definitely a year of extremes. But even 2020 couldn’t stop the steady appreciation of home prices in Silicon Valley! Don’t believe me? See the charts below.
November numbers are out, and it’s clear that the housing market in Silicon Valley is on the rise. Sales and new listings are up by double digits across the board, and median sales prices aren’t lagging far behind.
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Remember the luxury homes we found on our road trip to Lake Tahoe last month? Well, now Compass it out with a detailed guide to the luxury home market in Northern California and Lake Tahoe as we continue to see the impacts of COVID-19. While there was a significant dip early on, the luxury market has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. Read the full report to learn more!
