This past weekend homebuyers seemed to “wake up” from the holiday doldroms with good open house traffic and interest reported.  So far this is not yet reflected in sales, but inventory is still low (now at 62 homes on the market in Saratoga).

Because of the low inventory, three market areas (Sunnyvale, Campbell & Los Altos) slipped from “Sellers” to “Buyers Markets”.  Thirteen market areas had the ratio of open escrows to total inventory decline in the past month (since December 14, 2007) and only two (Berryessa and Los Gatos Mountains) reversed that downward trend by 2 percentage points or more.  

An interesting wrinkle is an influx of Cupertino homeowners shopping for good schools and better prices in Almaden.  Cupertino is still a “sellers market”, but not as extreme as a month ago.  You can get a substantially larger (435 sf) home in Almaden at the same price or the same size home for $217,000 less.  There is about a $100 per square foot difference between the two market areas. For example, the average 2,447 sf home in Almaden is priced at $1,221,690 or $499 per square foot.   The average 2,227 sf home in Cupertino is priced at $1,329,400 or $596 per square foot.