How about the other side of the market? Condos/Townhouses? Sort of a similar scenario to what we saw with houses on Tuesday.

In 2008 108 units sold in Foster City. Interestingly, and also inexplicably, 144 units sold in 2009 and in 2010 we had 135 sales in this category.

In 2011 we had 152 units sell, obviously the bes since the bust.

How about the average values in FC, in 2008 the average sale price $637,436. That number fell in 2009 to an average of $574,746. That amounts to about 9.8% reduction in values over that year. In 2010 the average sale price was $580,148. Like houses, a slight improvement for that year. The problem in 2011, again like houses was the fact that the average dollar amount was down to $509,175. That amounts to about a 20% drop in FC values since the top. This is also somewhat confusing since the high end has pretty much dissolved at Promontory Point and we don’t have $1 million plus comps to add into these figures. The truth is hat some projects did well and others tanked and brought the overall values down for this report. Island J is a great example.

No too surprisingly, the average days on market rose again too.  In 2008 we were at 56 DOM. In 2009 we jumped up to 70 DOM…but in 2010 that number went back down to 50 DOM. In 2011 we went up to 72 DOM.

2012 is going to be very, very interesting! With the low levels of inventory right now it’s very hard to gauge how it’ll be since it’s pretty active right now. Lets root for a good year.

It really seemed to me for most of last year that the market was slower in Foster City than it was in some of the neighboring communities. Oddly enough, there was more activity in 2011 but prices wne down. I felt like 2010 was a good year but last year seemed slower to me. Anyway…in the years post-downturn we had the following:

In 2007 there were 100 single family transactions in Foster City, 95 in 2008 and 100 again in 2009. In 2010 we had 112. 2011 brought us 125 sales…we’re heading in the right direction at least!

The average days on market for homes changed too. This usually is an important bellweather that demonstrates how the market is doing. In 2007 the average DOM was 32, it was 49 in 2008 and it was a whopping 65 in 2009. In 2010 it dropped to 42. 2011 averaged 55 days on the market. Honestly, all these numbers are really good compared to lots of areas in Northern California. 55 is great, it’s just slightly slower than the year before.

Now how about the actual numbers. If we’re comparing average sale prices we look sort of bad compared to the good old days. In 2007 the average sale price in Foster City was $1,157,960. In 2008 that price was $1,112, 816. In 2009 it had fallen to $1,020,717 and in 2010 that number rose to $1,030,981. Here’s the bad news…in 2011 we finished at $981,169. That’s actually a pretty significant decline and brings the total reduction in value since 2007 when the bad news started to 15%. Having said that, 15% isn’t bad at all compared to most places.

MOST EXPENSIVE CONDO/TOWNHOUSE:

712 Zumwalt This waterfront townhouse at Harborside, a 4 bedroom unit sold for $818,000 and went with multiple offers.

HIGHEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

1027 Rudder at Bayfront Court. This 2 bedroom waterfront sold for $688,000, or $502.00 a square foot. Waterfronts are nice…

LOWEST PRICED CONDO/TOWNHOUSE:

3103 Admiralty Lane. That’s the only pic of this 1 bedroom unit that sold for $183,999. Last years lowest was also a 1 bedroom but it went for $294,000. This one was a foreclosure.

LOWEST COST PER SQUARE FOOT:

665 Portofino at The Islands. It sure takes something special to unseat Promontory Point for this award…but this one does it! It comes it at an incredible $200.00 per square foot. Of course you have to pay the $717.00 per month HOA dues.

LONGEST ON THE MARKET:

844 Balboa. Once again at the Islands. This unit took 336 days to sell.

GREATEST OVERBID:

842 Magellan at Winston Square. This 3 bedroom unit sold for $36,240 over asking and finished at $671,240.

GREATEST AMOUNT UNDER ORIGINAL LIST PRICE:

878 Ursa in Isle Cove. This unit, a very nice one began at $690,000 and ended up a short sale and closed at $525,000. $165,000 under the orginal price.

Every year…it’s fun!

MOST EXPENSIVE HOUSE:

609 Anacapa Very nice 4 bedroom, 3 bath house in Alden Park…not on the water. It sold for $1,448,000. up from 2010′s high of $1,400,000.

HIGHEST PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT:

608 Bridgeport This truly gorgeous Whalers waterfront went for $1,110,000 in spite of it’s 1790 sq ft…or $620.00 a sq ft.

LOWEST PRICED HOUSE:

811 Constitution This Eichler in need of some updates sold for $700,000.

LOWEST PRICE PRE SQUARE FOOT:

150 Flying Cloud Isle This REO was on leased land, which accounts for it’s low sale price of $763,000 for a waterfront. It was the lowest at $345.00 a square foot.

LONGEST ON THE MARKET:

Once again…150 Flying Cloud. That leased land thing was a problem…it lasted 376 days.

GREATEST OVERBID:

121 Spinnaker This was really a gorgeous house and I really thought it was priced too low to begin with at $998,000. It sold for $1.035,000 or $37,000 over asking. It was one of very few overbids in 2011.

GREATEST AMOUNT UNDER ORIGINAL LIST PRICE:

20 Lyme Lane This actually isn’t a bad house, the problem was it’s right next to the 101 sound wall. That caused it to take 275 days to get an offer and it sold for $860,000…$288,000 under it’s original price of $1,148,000.

It’s that time of the year again…low inventory time. Every year at this time folks tend to stop thinking about selling their homes in favor of getting ready for the Holidays and simply wait for the New Year to start the process. 2011 is no different than any other year it would seem. Today, there are 16 active single family homes listed for sale in Foster City. One of them is actually a vacant lot too. The house burned down in a fire a few years ago. Now it’s bank owned to boot.

It’s sort of a tough time if you’re looking to buy because there just isn’t much to look at…and what’s there isn’t exactly super exciting either. Consequently, the less than exciting places are getting quite a bit of interest. If you can do it, wait until after the first of the year. You’ll have more selection. Seems like every time I call about a house on the market in FC right now too I’m hearing that multiple disclosure packets have gone out and there’s tons of interest. I guess if you want to compete now’s the time. No supply, lots of demand.

We hit a milestone this week in Foster City. I really kind of thought that we had pretty much stopped seeing homes sell in this town in the higher price ranges. After all, it’s been before the market tanked in late 2008 that we’ve seen a house in Foster City sell for over $1,400,000. Actually we came pretty close last year when 618 Portsmouth sold for exactly $1,400,000 and this year we had 1037 Monterey selling for $1,386,000, but it really has been slim pickins in this lofty price range around here. Well, that changed this week when the house at 609 Anacapa came on at $1,448,000…and sold right away.

This house is really stunning and has a ton of details. If any house could get top dollar it was this one. Really magificent attention to detail. I’m not entirely sure if this marks any kind of trend but it sure isn’t a bad sign either. I’d like to think that it suggests some confidence in Foster City and where it’s heading. Congratulations to the sellers at 609 Anacapa and to Lizette D’Almeida who listed this property.

I’m really not sure exactly why this is, but it’s sure seemed to me this year that the high end of the market in Foster City has been a little slow. Seems slower than our sister Mid Peninsula communities as well. While there’s been sales there, the difference is that there seems to be more demand in our neighboring towns for the high end house. In the last 3 months, there’s been 19 single family homes sold and closed in Foster City…only 1 of them went for the asking price. Nevermind overbids, there weren’t any of those.  There were 8 houses close escrow during that period as well under a million that experienced overbids in FC.

I guess the thought came to me because I’ve seen overbids on many houses in other towns around here. In San Carlos, there were 60 closings in the last 3 months, 32 of them at or over asking and 12 of them taking place in th range over a million. In Belmont 30 homes closed escrow, 18 at or over asking and 4 of them over a mil. Finally, in San Mateo there were 96 closings, 39 at or over asking and 12 of them were over the million dollar ranges.

If it wasn’t for the house at 717 Baffin closing at the asking price of $1,228,000 we would have had a blank in this category.  I’m not sure why this is? There’s currently 7 pending sales on houses priced over a million dollars, it’s going to be interesting to see where they end up. It’s not like homes in this range aren’t selling, it’s just that the competition for these homes is less in FC than it is around us.