Property Investments
During a recent discussion with a Los Gatos seller, she mentioned that a neighborhood home had sold for $1.4 million, suggesting that her fixer upper could fetch more! Well, we had to throw cold water on that kind of expectations.
The fact of the matter is that according to the Trulia Price Monitor, the home prices have started to dip in some silicon valley market. Please keep in mind that we are not talking about homes becoming affordable again, but we are talking about a slow down. And even as slow downs go we still have ways to go before homes stay on the market too long.
However, we are seeing price drops for Los Gatos homes which would is a rare site. Another group of people who are not that optimistic about the housing recover were appraisers who participated in a survey which clearly showed they are not confidant about the recovery.
United States Appraisals, sent out an anonymous survey to its member and associates. Roughly 600 appraisers responded to this survey and when asked, “What is your current level of confidence in the housing market?”; less than 50% answered they feel the recovery is mildly strong. This is down from the last time the same survey at the end of Q1 where nearly 55% of the respondents felt very strong about the housing recovery.
According to Aaron Fowler, president of United States Appraisals, “Appraisers tend to focus on the local markets in which they work and are not typically concerned with national numbers or reporting. She continued that “By polling our nationwide panel of local appraisers, we believe that in the aggregate we receive a solid interpretation of the national marketplace.”
Fowler echoes our observation and sentiment that the broadly speaking everyone is still optimistic, but rising interest rates have contributed to the slow down. And we are seeing the evidence of such slow downs in our local market as well where a recent listing in Monte Sereno only generated 6 offers compared to last year where the home could have easily generated twice as many offers.
What is your sentiment about the market? Are you still looking to buy? Are you nervous about the rising rates? We would love to hear from you.