And here’s a closer look at the downward trend since the peak in 2009:

This trend combined with the amazing weather has made this a good time to bring a listing on in Marin, as we’ve been seeing well-priced homes in popular areas getting multiple offers in many cases. On the flipside this atmosphere can be frustrating for buyers, but we’ll see more inventory heading into Spring.

If you’d like market stats for your particular town or price range just drop me an email at george@sfnorth.com.

And pending rates go down dramatically as price range increases. Things are going to slow down overall as always as we head into the holidays, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens after the first of the year. Drop me an email at george@sfnorth.com if you’d like market stats for your area or price segment.

And here they are by price range. No surprise that the lower end continues to be stronger than the luxury market.

The conventional wisdom says that July and August aren’t the best time to list a home since people are on vacation, but this could be a good time for sellers to throw that thinking out the window and take advantage of the lack of competition.

Pendings (the number of homes going into escrow) have remained pretty constant from March, but months supply has ticked up a little because of the increased inventory. The market still feels more active than it has in a while, and we’re hearing the same from other agents, though it’s not across the board. Interest level in properties coming on still varies quite a bit depending on the nature of the home, how realistic the price is, and of course the location.

In 2010 we saw a lot of activity in the early part of the year, and then a decline from the beginning of Summer through the holidays. It’ll be interesting to see if this year things stay more consistent and if this feeling that the Marin market is heating up continues. As always feel free to drop us an email at info@sfnorth.com if you’d like stats for your particular area or price range.

Now this is certainly not what’s happening across the board. There are still plenty of homes sitting on the market, and we’re still seeing price reductions in many cases. But in the more popular areas, homes that have a lot of the features most buyers are looking for–and that are priced correctly–are getting a lot of activity. We’re not back to the way things were at the height of the crazy market in 2005, where even less desirable homes were selling fast and for too much money, but we haven’t felt this level of competition for good homes in years. We’ll have to wait and see how much this is function of the time of year and a low supply, or if it keeps up through the rest of 2011.

Here’s a look at the months of inventory based on pending listings for single family homes under $2 million in Marin, meaning how many months it would take to sell all the homes currently on the market based on the rate at which they’re going into escrow. It was down to 3.3 months supply in March, which was 11.4% lower than the supply one year ago, and 43.3% lower than March 2009. The numbers for April will be out soon and I’m guessing they’ll further reflect the increasing activity and relatively lean supply, but I’ll post some charts when they’re available to give a better picture.

If you’d like market info and stats for your specific area of Marin or price range feel free to email me at gcrowe@sfnorth.com.

It was a pretty slow summer, but as you’ll see in the chart below there was a nice uptick in homes entering escrow in October, the most new pendings since the little run of activity that peaked in April. Inventory is ticking down and we would expect it to drop off dramatically in November and bottom out in December as it typically does as homes sell without being replaced by new inventory and sellers pull their properties off the market for the Holidays.

We saw a bit of a glut of inventory overall through the summer, but as you can see from this chart of months supply based on pending sales, supply and demand are closing. And this fits with what we’re seeing, as there have been few homes coming on the market the last several weeks, while buyers are still buying. Inventory could get pretty slim over the winter, which could be a good argument for sellers to buck the conventional wisdom that says you should wait for spring to bring your home on. A desirable, well-priced home can attract a lot of attention in a period with very little competition.

And here’s a look at price in dollars per square foot. I’ve limited it to homes under $3 million, since higher end luxury properties tend to skew the numbers and have been more volatile.

As you can see, Marin residential properties (under $3 million) on average have been bouncing along between about $400 and $440 per square foot for a while now. In fact if we look at a five year graph you can see the big drop in 2008, but then relative stability over the last two years.

Corte Madera Home Sales

January 1, 2008 – February 19, 2008

Single Family Residential Homes Only.
Statistics as of February 19, 2007 from BAREIS Marin County MLS®.

Tiburon Home Sales

January 1, 2008 – February 19, 2008

Single Family Residential Homes Only.
Statistics as of February 19, 2007 from BAREIS Marin County MLS®.