This is the big question for alot of us realtor types right now…is it slow? The answer seems to change by the minute too! One minute I’m certain we’ve slid back into 2009…and the next minute it’s 2005. Weird! It really did seem very, very hot about a month ago and it’s not really like that right now…I think! What’s it like in Foster City is the question?

Currently there are 18 single family homes listed for sale here in FC. There’s also a total of 21 pending sales! Hmmm…not too shabby. In the condo/townhouse category there’s 38 units currently for sale and 26 pending sales. These are really good numbers folks. Back in December of 2008 there were 27 single family homes listed and 4 pending sales. Now, that’s slow! I think it’s actually kind of normal around here right now to tell you the truth. Certainly it’s going to be interesting to see what the future holds, huh? Here’s some new listings that are worth watching:

910 Laguna listed by Jan Majeski of Alain Pinel for $1,223,000. This is a really nice place and it’s undoubtedly going to get multiple offers at this price and in this location. It’s a 2680 sq ft 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in terrific shape.

211 Duck Ct listed by Janice Woods of Alain Pinel for $849,000. This is a really cute 3 and 2 in great shape and priced right. It’s an 1890 sq ft floorplan and it’s clean.

1302 Melbourne listed by Rip Miller of Alain Pinel for $1,255,000. No, I’m not singling out APR agents today! This super nice 4 and 3 is actually the home of blog reader and foto contest participant Anita Reimann…and this is a really wonderful home! Go get um you guys!

1072 Tiller listed by Peggy LeDoux of Cashin Company for $759,000. See! Not everybody is from APR! This Bayfront Court townhouse is really incredibly gorgeous! It’s not a waterfront but it’s so nice it’ll be interesting to see how it does!

Is it slow? Let’s see how long it takes for these to sell…

Just about a year ago there was all this nervousness because lenders were tightening up on their criteria and unless you had 20% down it was going to be very hard to buy a home around here. Of course, it is harder when you have 10% or less down and you have to jump through a bunch more hoops to get a place if you’re using an FHA loan…but it is do-able. The anticipation was that most folks were simply going to have to save more money before taking the plunge and that would slow the market down since it was going to take awhile to get that big old 20% number. Right?

It sure doesn’t seem that way to me so far in 2010. What it seems like is that everybody has a ton of money! On some of my listings this year, 4 of the six offers on Dory had at least 30% down…one had 50% down. Catamaran had two offers that had 30% down. Alameda got an offer with 40% down. Many other transactions I’ve done with buyers have had them competing with other offers that have had large down payments and in many cases all cash offers have won the day.

Yesterday I presented an offer that was one of six. We had 25% down, 2 other offers had 35 and 40% down and one was all cash. Having said that, we’re not talking about small houses. We’re talking about houses selling for $1,000,000. It’s amazing how many folks have $350,000 to $400,000 to put down! In this era when appraisals have been an issue it’s comforting for a seller and thei agent to see offers with such high down payments. It, of course, is also frustrating for a buyer who has 20% down (can you imagine having $200,000 as a liability?) when they have to compete with these other folks. Even with 50% down it becomes a challenge when seemingly so many others have cash and can close in a week on a property…and then offer free rent back!

It’s becoming sort of crazy again in some market segments. Sort of like 2004, only everybody playing is very well qualified and has a ton of money!

Well there really isn’t any question that the market is a tad bit slower right now than it was about a month ago. Sort of. When I say it’s slower now I mean on the listings that my buyers don’t want. The ones they do want are getting multiple offers still and are going over asking. Oh well!

The market here in Foster City is kind of sluggish right now if you ask me. The last time I measured it was on February 9 and at that time there were 15 single family homes on the market with 13 pending sales. Today there are 24 active single family homes listed and there are 9pending sales…the most lopsided ratio so far this year. To make things more interesting, only 4 of those pendings have sold since March 18. Less than one sale a week since then.

Condos/Townhouses have been doing a little better, with 40 active listings and 24 pending sales. Interestingly, 14 of them have sold since March 18…a little more than 3 a week.

Why the slowdown? I’m really not 100% sure, and each market in each year is always a little bit different, but it sure seems to me that as long as I’ve been doing this the market tends to slow down just a bit around tax time. I have no statistics that prove that but i sure have noticed it over the years. Even in the hottest of markets it’s felt a little slower right about now. I simply think that people visit their accountants, don’t always get the most happy news and pull in their horns a little bit. Especially if a portion of their savings is earmarked for down payment and now it’s discovered that the IRS is going to get a bit more than was expected?

I’m just guessing all that, but I’m sure not guessing about having this same experience over the years right about now. Usually it all seems to work it’s way out by the beginning of May and the market heats up again. Who knows about 2010. Maybe the rest of the year will be slower, who knows? I’m betting it won’t though…there’s still way too many people out looking for this to be a longer term trend. Just ask the buyers I’m working with!

One of the reasons the Foster City real estate market has been hot so far this year has been the low amount of inventory here in town. We hovered around 10 active single family listings for most of the first quarter and as a result multiple offers have been common. Well, that’s starting to change as 9 new listings have come up in the last 11 days here in town. It’s going to be very interesting to see if the momentum continues and we still have multiple offer scenarios around here in the coming months. Here’s a few of the new ones that are worth a look:

851 Grenada Lane listed by Sue Dickey of Alain Pinel for $1,498,000. This is one gorgeous house. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths on the water in Plum Isle. Remodeled everywhere and it has a nice backyard too.

701 Baffin listed by Joan Wachter of Coldwell Banker for $1,229,000. Interesting 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in Sea Colony. Good size backyard here too. It’s going to be interesting to see if this place gets this price.

52 Williams Lane listed by Joe Benvenuto of Alain Pinel for $888,000. This used to be a 2 bedroom floorplan at Williams Landing but the sellers completely remodeled it, added into what was once attic space and created a grand staircase to get there too. It’s now 4 bedrooms and 3 baths…and completely unique. It’s a nice property too.

See all this new inventory is like reading a mystery…will they sell? Will there be overbids? Is more coming on the market that will slow the pace? We’ll see…

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had multiple clients inform me that they’ve read that the market is slow. They’ve been informed that the January sales numbers were bad both in the Bay Area as well as Nationally. I’ve also heard that a variety of  websites have proclaimed that the local market is struggling to reach the 2004 level in it’s home values. I’ve heard that continued price erosion is inevitable and that 2010 is supposed to be as bad as 2009 was. Of course (and ironically) those same clients have, and are currently, participating in making offers on homes being overbid.

Here’s the funny thing…it doesn’t square with my own personal experience. I could look at numbers and statistics all day long and still be confused.  Having said that, the only really meaningful barometer about the health of this market to me is 1) is my phone ringing and 2) what’s my personal experience representing clients right now.

The answer to the first one is YES, it’s ringing. On fact, I’m probably as busy personally as I’ve ever been. I have as many active buyers that I’m currently showing homes to as I did at the peak in 2005-06. Here’s the thing…I don’t really think I’m all THAT special. If my phone is ringing, there’s lots of other agents who’s phone is ringing too. I KNOW the market is WAY, WAY better in 2010 than it was last year from that fact alone.

How about the day to day experience? Unfortunately, My clients and I are not simply waltzing in and ratifying on home after home. In fact, almost every offer I’ve written this year has been as a part of a multiple offer scenario. Here’s a few of some sales that have involved multiples so far this year:

572 Nottingham Foster City

1121 Catamaran Foster City

18 Dory Lane Foster City

606 Pavo Lane Foster City

733 Celestial Lane Foster City

9 E Court Lane Foster City

17 E Court Lane Foster City

813 Tamarack San Carlos

124 Northam San Carlos

3404 Fernwood San Mateo

3382 Marisma San Mateo

650 Celestial Foster City

1002 Gull Foster City

1599 Beach Park Foster City

105 Wilshire San Carlos

1822 Bayview Belmont

These last three didn’t have pics, sorry.

I’m sure there’s lots more listings that have experienced, or are right now experiencing multiple offers in 2010. It’s just that the above listings are the ones that I personally have been involved with. Too bad we didn’t get them all!! I have absolutely no doubt that there’s plenty of others that have gone multiple too, don’t you? These two facts are the only real barometer as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care what statistics are published. If my clients can write an offer on a property, come in $30,000 to $50,000 under asking with no competition and get the place I’ll write about it here all day long. Unfortunately that wouldn’t be true…the market is pretty darn hot as far as I’m concerned.

OK, I know it’s early but 2010 sure seems to be off to a good start…at least if houses selling is of interest to you. It’s probably not that good of a start if you wanted more significant price erosion. It’s just that it seems like every house I’ve shown since the first of the year has gotten multiple offers. In one case, I had a client interested in a little foreclosure at 960 3rd Ave in Redwood City that got 20 0ffers last week. That’s a pretty good turn out if you ask me.

What really surprised me was my own listing at 18 Dory Ln in Nantucket Cove in Foster City. My clients and I had contemplated listing it last fall but for several reasons decided to wait until this month to put it on. The townhouse category had shown improvement but it still was fairly sluggish. Other similar floor plans to ours had sold at Nantucket Cove last year for less than ours was going to list at ($748,000) and while I had hoped that 2010 would bring some energy I was a liitle concerned.

It came on the market last Friday afternoon, by Saturday morning I had an agent who had written an offer. I told him I wasn’t looking at offers until Tuesday…and on Sunday at the open house I had 80 to 90 people. By Monday afternoon I had handed out 14 disclosure packets. We looked at offers on Tuesday afternoon and we had 7 of them. Four of them were over the asking price. Needless to say, the sellers and I were very happy. There’s very little doubt in my mind that this outcome would not have happened if we had listed in November.

I recall other sluggish markets, the fall of 2001 comes to mind, where the market shifted from asleep to fully awake virtually overnight right after the first of the year. 2009 was a difficult and frightening year for many people. There had to be demand that’s been pent up. For now at least, it sure feels to me like the market is moving forward. Of course it’s way to early to crown the market back again…but we’re off to a good start.

How about this category…

MOST EXPENSIVE CONDO/TOWNHOUSE:

740 Promontory Point #3209 And you thought it was impossible to make money in this downturn? This place was a foreclosure and sold in November 2008 for $750,000. It sold again in March of 2009 for $880,000. Nice!

HIGHEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

1040 Galley This Bayfront Court unit sold for $750,000, or $521.00 per square foot. The Promontory Point unit above came in at $388.00 per square foot.

LOWEST PRICED CONDO/TOWNHOUSE:

2109Admiralty This 1 bedroom unit went for $310,000…an overbid. Originally listed for $299,000.

LOWEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

720 Promontory Point #2302 2224 square feet and a purchase price of $635,000. It’s amazing how prices have fallen at this project. It came in at $285.00 per square foot.

LONGEST ON THE MARKET:

Yep, 720 Promontory Point again. A total of 284 days.

GREATEST OVERBID:

857 Canis This place really was an aberration. Sold via auction and priced at a really low, bait price of $300,000…the place got a ton of interest and closed at $564,500. $264,500 over asking. There were several other, normal overbids in 2009…the highest of those was $20,000.

GREATEST AMOUNT UNDER ORIGINAL LIST PRICE:

It’s really sort of painful isn’t it? Once again…720 Promontory Point!  It sold for $290,000 under it’s original list price. Ouch!!

And there you have it…I wonder what these will look like in a year.

I did this last year and it was kind of fun and illustrative…so here we are again.

MOST EXPENSIVE HOUSE:

700 Santa Cruz Wonderful house on a large waterfront lot at Longwater. 3800 sq ft in the house too. It sold for $1,599,000 and closed in November.

HIGHEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

602 Mystic Another nice waterfront, it came in at $672.00. Mystic must have had something going on in 2009…612 Mystic came in at $662.00.

LOWEST PRICED HOUSE:

398 Chesapeake This foreclosure, a really clean nice house too, came in at $750,000 in June. Last years lowest was $825,000.

LOWEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

248 Curlew This 3560 sq ft 5 bedroom house sold for $1,065,000…or $299.00 per sq ft.

LONGEST ON THE MARKET:

159 Flying Mist This home was on the market for 320 days. It’s also the winner of another category listed below.

GREATEST OVERBID:

1402 Leeward Interesting that all of the overbids took place in the range under 1 million. This house sold for $56,000 over asking. There were others…this was the highest.

GREATEST AMOUNT UNDER ORIGINAL LIST PRICE:

Once again…159 Flying Mist This place had the dubious distinction of reducing it’s price a total of $550,000 during it’s listing life before it ratified.

Nothing real scientific here…but it’s kind of fun to look at.

While we’re looking at the numbers, let’s also take a peek at the condos/townhouses. Strictly from a numbers standpoint, we’re looking pretty good here too.

2008 FC Condo/Townhouse DataPDF
2009 FC Condo/Townhouse Sales

In 2008 103 condo/townhouse units sold in Foster City…in 2009 100 sold.

In 2008 the average sale price for a condo/townhouse in Foster City was $637,436…in 2009 it was $633,787. Incredibly, less than 1% off of 2008’s number. Pretty decent!

Average days on the market went from 55 in 2008 to 65 in 2009. It’s worth noting that there were several properties that sold in the first week as well as several that took well over 200 days to sell. It was that kind of year. If a property was priced correctly the chances were pretty good that it was going to sell reasonably quickly.

It’s also worth mentioning that, for both condo/townhouses and single family homes, the first part of 2009 was glacial. It was incredibly slow and very little inventory was moved. That’s why it’s so remarkable that both categories ended up at 100 units sold. The second half was really pretty decent and normal. It certainly seems like another reasonable assumption that 2010 will be pretty healthy. I’m betting the numbers will be better than 2009’s for sure. We’ll see…

Seems like in the last few years it’s been a little tense when it comes time to look at the year to date numbers because my teeny little pea sized brain suggests that I’m sure to see a whole lot of bad news. Last year I did this same report…and it really wasn’t that bad! Well, certainly that could not have been the case for 2009…after all almost nothing sold in the entire first quarter. Right? How about we look at the actual numbers.

2008 FC Single Family DataPDF

2009 FC Single Family Home Sales

Just in case you don’t really want to wade through those actual numbers let me offer you the highlights:

In 2008 there were 95 single family homes sold in Foster City. In 2009 there were 100! In 2007…there were 100 too! Hmm…

In 2008 the average sale price of a single family home was $1,112,816, in 2009 it was $1,020,717. (-8.3%) Since the average sale price in 2007 was $1,157,960 it would appear to me that the total decline in the last two years has been about 11%. For what it’s worth, the 2007 number reflects the all time high in average sales price. That’s really pretty darn good in my mind versus the vast majority of the Bay Area…not to mention everywhere else!

One area where there was a clear change (just ask any realtor you know!!) was the average days on the market for a given listing. In 2007 it was 32, 49 in 2008 and 65 in 2009.

Bottom line here is the simple fact that we had 100 sales in what was certainly a down year bodes very well for sales in 2010. It seems unlikely to me that it will go down from there. My prediction is that it’ll be a normal year, many good deals will bring multiple offers and I’m suspecting we’ll have some price appreciation when all is said and done. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see about that. Should be fun at least!