Spring is here which is usually the tradional time for buyers and sellers in Marin to move quickly of their real estate activities. Marin sales remain strong and ahead of last year. Median sales prices in most communities in Marin have increased or at lease not fallen by appreciable amounts. This cannot be said for the rest of the housing market in most areas of the United States. Marin County with its small supply of homes and hardly any new construction has a steady built in demand for homes that will buck most of the national trends.

Here are some of the average Sales prices of Single Family homes in Marin County as of March, 2008:

I thought some data and trends would be helpful on the state of the market in Marin. I have done some analysis and below are the average and median prices of homes sold in the bay area from January 1, 2008 through May 15, 2008. The number of units sold to date are down around 35% from same time last year.

If you should have any questions on this data feel free to drop me a line at rparks@visionrealtors.com or call me at 415-297-9000.

It is Thursday June 5, 2008 here in Sunny Marin County and the market has appreciably picked up in the last few weeks. Mill Valley, Tiburon, Larkspur and Greenbrae have shown increased activity. Many buyers are interested in writing offers and getting into contract on homes when in the past they were sitting on the sidelines.

In addition to the Marin County being more active on the buy side there is also increased activity on homes that are in the following categories:

ºBank Owned in Marin

ºPre- Foreclosure in Marin

ºAuctions in Marin

Here are some of the stats to give you an idea of what is going on in the foreclosures and short sale arena:

As of June 5, 2008 there are 748 homes in Marin in some state of financial distress. Of those 748 homes, 397 are in Pre- Foreclosure (a notice of default has been issued on the property for non-payment of the loan); 142 Properties waiting for auction and 209 Bank-owned. These homes in Marin are principally in San Rafael and Novato where the market has taken a sharp dive. A snap shot of homes in these troubled categories is as follows:

If you should have any questions on this data feel free to drop me a line at rparks@visionrealtors.com or call me at 415-297-9000.

The C.A.R. (California Association of Realtors) along with CSI (Costello & Sons Insurance) recently made an announcement that they have joined forces to create RERS (Real Estate Risk Services). The new company brings together a portion of the California Association of Realtors, which currently covers everything from workers’ comp to auto and home insurance. In addition, there will be no obligation risk analysis and an assessment for insurance needs for brokers and realtors.

CSI is looking forward to working with C.A.R. and believe that the goals of C.A.R. are the same as CSI’s. Their plan is to bring together their firms in California, numbering in the thousands, and have them under one umbrella. They also plan to start with a basic service and build on those services down the road.

CSI has already been named as one of the top 25 innovators in the United States insurance industry. Their home office is in Northern California and they specialize in personal insurance and real estate. Just a couple of months ago the Marin Green Business Program certified CSI as a green company, which was largely due to CSI’s business model of being a “paperless” company, by conducting most of its business through their website.

Attached are some the latest statistics from the Marin Report.

As you can see we have seen sales of existing single family homes increase by 43% from March but are still below 2007 same period by 31%. Below are the details by City:

We are still seeing a decrease in the number of units sold throughout the county for the month of May to date. 108 Single family homes have sold from May 1- 26 compared to 187 for the same period last year. The number of homes in contract on the other hand is increasing. There are 259 single family homes currently in contract which represents 24.2% of total homes currently marketed. When the percentage reaches 25% we are looking at a more balanced market between buyers and sellers. Sellers have gotten the message that aggressive pricing is needed to make the sale and the median and average prices we have seen in April are a reflection of buyers being attracted to seller concessions. If you should have any questions on this data feel free to drop me a line at rparks@visionrealtors.com or call me at 415-297-9000. Marin Real Estate Blog

It is Saturday May , 10, 2008 and the weather is warm and beautiful here in Mill Valley. Tomorrow is Mothers Day and I hope everyone has a wonderful time in celebration of our wonderful Mothers. I thought I would spend some time on the Luxury End of the Marin County market. It is interesting and a phenomenon versus the rest of the State and the Country. Marin’s Luxury properties are still strong.

My outlook remains strong for Marin in the high end category. There are many more buyers than sellers in these price categories and as you can see from the statistics even though number of units sold are don the average and median price are not fluctuating the same as prices of homes at $1 Million or less.

As a point of reference for the first quarter 2008 versus 2007 for homes sold $1,000,000 and below Volume was down 43%, Average price was down 4%, Median price was down 4% and the number of units sold was down a whopping 43%. This gives you some pause and tells the accurate story that the lower end buyers and sellers are having trouble moving there homes as the number of qualified buyers are reduced as well as home prices in this category have moved down. Marin county is not completely immune to the mortgage issues surrounding the banking industry.

As always the Marin Report will be able to give you drill down details on the average and median price of a home in every city in Marin. In addition if you go to the home page of www.Westbayre.com you will be able to get all the details on the San Francisco and the Sonoma county markets. It is a great deal of work to keep these statistics up to date but it is one of the best ways to determine the state of the market and some indication of its direction.

Here are some numbers in Marin for the first quarter:

.Of course feel free to call or drop me a line at rparks@visionrealtors.com or call me at 415-297-9000.

It is Saturday May 3, 2008 and the weather is warm and beautiful here in Corte Madera. Marin County is marching to a slightly different drummer as it relates to the housing market. The market in Marin is still robust in certain areas and very slow in others. The areas of Novato, Petaluma and certain parts of San Rafael are feeling the effects of the mortgage debacle. Many more home owners are in default on their mortgage obligation, no doubt due to the easy lending of the past few years.

As always the Marin Report will be able to give you drill down details on the average and median price of a home in every city in Marin. In addition if you go to the home page of www.Westbayre.com you will be able to get all the details on the San Francisco and the Sonoma county markets. It is a great deal of work to keep these statistics up to date but it is one of the best ways to determine the state of the market and some indication of its direction.

I always look like at the percentage of homes in contract to give us some guidance. This percentage is calculated from the total number of homes listed and those that are in contract with buyers. Anything around 20% or less is a buyer’s market. Anything 30% or more is a seller’s market. A balance market would be somewhere around 25%.

Please don’t let some of these numbers fool you. When we have only a handful of home selling in a specific community during the month you cannot get a true indication of the health of that real estate market or its direction. I can tell you that from my empirical analysis as well as from the feedback I am getting from my clients, people are looking for fair prices. In no case have I seen average homes selling at inflated prices. In many cases I have seen those same home sell in 2005 and 2006 for up to 10% greater. Many homeowners here in Marin are seeing large gains if they have held their homes for a long period of time. Those that have purchased since 2005 are lucky to break even if they need to sell now. Also, there are many exceptions to this in Marin. I recently put a client into a house in Mill Valley that was not on the market. It sold at $150,000 more than the previous owners paid for it just 3 years ago, and they did no significant improvements on the house. This was due to the superb location of the home and its ambiance.

Novato is still showing signs of a very depressed market. There are winners and losers here and if you are a buyer and looking on a long term basis to hold some real estate you can get some good deals on homes. These numbers do not tell the whole story. Prices are down and days on market on up greatly. Please go to the Marin Report to see the details. Of course feel free to call or drop me a line at rparks@visionrealtors.com.

The percentage of listed homes in contract as of May 3, 2008 is as follows:

Spring is here which is usually the tradional time for buyers and sellers in Marin to move quickly of their real estate activities. Marin sales remain strong and ahead of last year. Median sales prices in most communities in Marin have increased or at lease not fallen by appreciable amounts. This cannot be said for the ret of the housing market in most areas of the United States. Marin County with its small supply of homes and hardly any new construction has a steady built in demand for homes that will buck most of the national trends.

Here are some of the average Sales prices of Single Family homes in Marin County as of March, 2008: