Quick Take
- Condo median sale prices continue to trend lower than this time last year.
- Inventory seems to have peaked for the year, as supply is slowly bought up.
- Listings continue to spend much longer on the market when compared on a year-over-year basis.
Note: You can find the charts/graphs for the Local Lowdown at the end of this section.
The fifth straight month of year-over-year price declines in the condo market
For quite a few months, we’ve seen median sale prices trailing where they were last year by a considerable amount. This issue is most pronounced in the condo market, which just recorded its fifth straight month of year-over-year declines in median sale prices, with condos selling for 11.41% less in Alameda County and 8.25% less in Contra Costa County. The single-family market would have had this same record if we hadn’t seen a 1.99% uptick in median sale prices in Contra Costa County last month. However, the single-family home market in Alameda County has seen the same five straight months of declining value.
Inventory is still at a much higher level than last year, despite reaching a local peak
It seems like inventory levels have reached a local peak over the past couple of months, with levels just starting to decrease in the single-family market in June. However, single-family inventory levels are still 20.05% higher on a year-over-year basis, and condo inventory levels are still 13.15% higher. The recent decline in inventory that we just saw can largely be attributed to the number of new listings being added shrinking at a faster rate than demand.
Homes are spending much longer on the market (on a percentage basis)
It’s true, homes are spending quite a bit more time on the market when you look at year-over-year percentage changes. Depending on the market you’re looking at, the average home is spending somewhere between 25% and 35% more time on the market compared to last year.
However, when you take a step back and look at the absolute numbers, homes are still moving relatively quickly. While the condo market truly has slowed down a bit, the average home is only spending 25 days on the market in Contra Costa County and 31 days on the market in Alameda County. When we turn to the single-family home market, listings move even faster, with the average Alameda County home spending just 15 days on the market, and the average Contra Costa County home spending 17 days on the market!
The market maintains its split dynamics
When determining whether a market is a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market, we look to the Months of Supply Inventory (MSI) metric. The state of California has historically averaged around three months of MSI, so any area with at or around three months of MSI is considered a balanced market. Any market that has lower than three months of MSI is considered a seller’s market, whereas markets with more than three months of MSI are considered buyers’ markets.
As we have seen for quite some time now, the single-family market in the East Bay continues to be a seller-dominated market, with just 2.3 months of inventory on the market in Alameda County and 2.8 months of inventory on the market in Contra Costa County. However, the condo market is a buyers' market, with 4.7 months of inventory on the market in Alameda County and 3.9 months in Contra Costa County.
