Real Estate Off and Running in 2011

We’re off and running in 2011.

It feels as if we blinked and January passed us by and the short month of February arrived. The year seems to be off to a great start in the real-estate market — there’s a lot of energy in the air.

The two listings that I put on the market in January, one last weekend and one the weekend before, received multiple offers and are now pending sales. 

For each, I held an open house on Saturday and Sunday. The open houses were incredibly busy, and in each case I had an offer in hand by the end of the weekend.

At my office meeting this week, two agents reported that longtime listings had received offers, one, multiple offers. After a discouraging 2010 for those two homes, they are now pending sales.

So how does this excitement compare with January's statistics? Please refer to the attached chart that compares January last year with January 2011. 

In Danville, sales were steady, but median sales price and price per square foot decreased. 

Blackhawk had twice as many sales this January as last — a huge increase in the median sales price with a drop in the price per square foot. 

In Alamo, there were fewer sales than last year  at the same time (9 versus 12), but the price per square foot increased and so did the median sales price.

In Alamo, $400 per square foot is a figure that will serve as an optimistic starting point for pricing a home. 

From that point, homes with a lot of acreage, spectacular finishes and newer construction should fetch a bit more per square foot. A home on a postage-stamp lot on a busy corner that is marketed as a “contractor special” should get a lot less.

Two of the nine homes that sold last month in Alamo sold for more than $400 per square foot.  

In fact, the high was $443/square foot: A home on Park Meadow Drive in Whitegate. This was a gorgeous single-story house with curb appeal (a lovely front approach with a fountain), beautiful back yard with pool and a stunning kitchen.

At the low end of the spectrum, $310/square foot, was a bank-owned home on Erselia Trail. This was a new home that went back to the bank. It had beautiful finishes throughout but the landscaping was not completed. 

Even so, it was surprising to see this almost 5,000-square-foot, five bedroom new home come on the market for $1,504,500 (that was the nice round number the bank liked). It received a lot of attention at that price, and with multiple offers, sold for $1,547,500.

In Danville, three homes sold for more than $400/square foot, one of which sold for $557/square foot. 

If you guessed a Westside location, you are right: a small home on a huge (1.38 acre) lot on Highland Drive. 

It should be no surprise to find another bank-owned property with the lowest price per square foot in Danville as well: A townhome on Ilo that sold for $137/square foot.

In Blackhawk, there were no sales for more than $400/square foot — the highest was $362. The lowest, a large home on Blackhawk Drive, was a short sale that sold for $1.2 million or $232/square foot.

For more information about local listings in the Tri-Valley, read my posted every Thursday.

My statistics are compiled using information from the Contra Costa Association of REALTOR’S® MLS. Display of MLS data is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed accurate by the MLS.