The San Mateo housing market

The San Mateo housing market, along with the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area real estate market, continued upon a gradual path to recovery in the last month of 2010 and the first days of 2011. According to the San Francisco Association of Realtors, the number of home sales in 2010 improved relative to 2009, while the median sales price and mortgage rates remain relatively low. In addition to a higher quantity of completed home sales, there was a substantial number of pending home sales moving into the New Year. There were a total of 2,295 home sales in the entirety of 2010, compared to 2,184 completed home sales throughout 2009. This represented an increase of almost four and a half percent year-over-year. This increase was accompanied by a boost in the median sales price, which rose by slightly more than four percent to $725,000. There were about a quarter more pending homes sales in December 2010, although condominium sales actually decreased over the same period. There were about twenty percent fewer condominium sales during December 2010, although the number of pending sales rose by approximately twenty-five percent. Over the entire year, the cumulative total of condominium sales totaled above 2009 levels, but well off of sales figures achieved during the peak of the market.

Fewer San Mateo County homes for sale were the product of foreclosure during 2010, suggesting that the Golden State’s distressed property market may be following the larger trend of the United States. According to a January 2011 report from RealtyTrac, there were 51,525 homes within the San Francisco Bay Area at some stage of the foreclosure process in 2010. Although this figure is substantial, it actually represents a decrease of almost five percent from the previous year. Additionally, there was about a twenty-six percent drop in notices of default. However, one local expert suggested that the decline is most likely only temporary, since the foreclosure process is taking longer for lenders to execute. If the number of foreclosures rebounds in upcoming months, it may result in a further decline in the average sales price of the region.