Recap: San Carlos Home Sales — October ‘08

The San Carlos market continues to slug it out as we enter the fall/winter season.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the downward pull from the economy has finally caught up with the San Carlos real estate market, and we really started to feel the effects in the late summer months of this year.   September was a disaster as you’ll see from the numbers below, even though October is supposed to be the “scary” month.    Here’s a quick summary of the home sales figures for October 2008 — if you’d like to drill down to specific neighborhoods within San Carlos, click San Carlos Sales Trends and then choose from the “Neighborhood” pull-down menu.

Note that compared to October of 2007, virtually all of the relevant price metrics are down by double-digit percentages.  Ouch.   The average DOM jumped to 42 days, but I have a hunch there are a couple of stragglers that are driving that number way up.   Here’s a month-by-month graphical representation that shows the general trend over this past year:

What does all of this mean?   With prices dropping for three consecutive months, and the days on market (DOM) average rising to 42 days, we’re entering a great window of opportunity to purchase real estate here in San Carlos, and on the Peninsula.  Homes are at some of their best values in many years, and it’s difficult to tell how much prices will continue to drop (if they do at all.)

Finally, here’s a graph of the home sales to date for 2008.  The sales volume has nearly rebounded to the 2007 levels, but we still need a strong Nov/Dec to keep on par.

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