San Mateo County Real Estate in 2020

Though Covid-19 upended many normal seasonal trends this year, the market did begin its typical “holiday season” slowdown in November - however activity remained well above levels of last year. 

The San Mateo monthly median house sales price often fluctuates without great significance. The longer-term trend (as seen in the chart above) is more important than short-term changes up and down. 

Q3 2020 median house sales prices (and the SF median condo price) by county: 

The biggest year-over-year increases in dollar volume sales since the pandemic hit occurred in counties where population densities are lower.  

Highest priced listings on the market in early November, and the highest priced sales May through October 2020, by Bay Area County. 

As is typical, the number of new listings plunged in November. In the first week of December - not illustrated on this chart - new listing activity ticked back up from the short Thanksgiving week, but remained well below pre-November numbers. December is usually the month with the lowest number of new listings coming on market.  

The total number of active listings saw a corresponding drop in November. 

Market activity as measured by the number of listings going into contract, though dropping in November, was 30% higher than in November 2019.  

The number of listings reducing their prices has run somewhat higher than normal since the pandemic hit. 

4 charts and tables on the San Mateo County and Bay Area luxury home markets. 

Annual median sales prices for houses of 5+ bedrooms, 3+ baths, 3500+ square feet in the more expensive communities of the 4 most expensive counties. 

If you're looking for a home priced $5 million and above, these are the places where you will have the greatest choice of listings. You have a very wide choice without leaving the county.

The long-term median sales price chart below is similar to those for counties around the Bay Area - a significant spike in median house prices since the pandemic struck in early spring. (Generally speaking, Bay Area condo markets have not seen comparable increases in prices.)

The market typically starts a big slowdown in mid-November, running through the mid-winter holidays, until it begins to wake up in mid-January: New listings and sales plummet, and listings pulled off the market soar. Higher-price segments normally see the most dramatic plunges in mid-winter activity. 

Following is a series of analyses that look at city sales volumes and median sales prices, luxury home sales, listings for sale, and a few standard measurements of supply and demand. Note that very expensive homes often see softer dynamics - the pool of buyers is much smaller, and overpricing more common for these very special properties - but this is not always the case. 

Regarding the next chart: Percentages of 50% or more would typically be considered to reflect a high-demand market. Over 60% signifies very high demand, or as it climbs, extremely high demand. As mentioned before, very high price markets often, but not always, see softer supply and demand indicators. 

The table below compares Q3 statistics across 5 years. Three charts further down we will discuss one of the dynamics behind the huge year-over-year increase in median house sales price. 

Median sales prices can rise because of increases in fair market value – i.e. buyers are paying more money for the same home (supply and demand) – and/or because buyers are purchasing larger, more expensive houses. Both dynamics are currently at play, but it is certain that affluent and very affluent buyers have made up a dramatically increasing percentage of the total market throughout the Bay Area. In San Mateo County, the average size of houses sold in Q3 jumped a whopping 11% year over year, which explains some of the enormous increase in median house sales price. 

Surprisingly, the fires did not significantly impact the number of deals being made in most Bay Area counties during the last 2 weeks of August - the exceptions being Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Monterey and Napa Counties, which saw declines of 13% to 33%. San Mateo County's activity actually increased over the period. (This chart looks at week by week activity in the Bay Area.)

Number of house sales and median house sales prices YTD 2020 by city: 

Bay Area median house sales prices, summer 2020: 

San Mateo County median house sales prices by month: 

Year-over-year trends: new listings up 40% and new contracts up 34%. However, remember that summer is usually a slower market after a busy spring, and that dynamic has been flipped upside down by the pandemic. 

A snapshot measure of how many listings were typically active on any given day of the specified month: 

A snapshot of the number of active 2-bedroom+ listings on the market in late August by price segment. These figures literally change daily as new listings arrive and existing listings go into contract. 

A snapshot of the number of luxury home listings on the market in late August by city. Again, these figures change every day. 

Bay Area luxury home markets: Year-over-year summer sales volumes and percentage changes. San Mateo County saw a very big increase in sales over summer 2019. Some counties saw stupendous jumps. 

With the increase in summer activity has come an early upswing in the number of listings reducing price. 

Regarding the next chart, the lower the Months Supply of Inventory (MSI), the stronger the demand as compared to the supply of listings. Most of the market remains firmly in "seller's market" territory by this measure - some price segments are particularly heated.  

A breakdown of sales by era of construction: 

There are indicators of some softening in the market: Year-over-year, the number of price reductions is up (chart 1); the average sales-price-to-list-price percentage is down (chart 2); and average days on market are somewhat higher, but still wouldn't be considered high (chart 3).

Summer has seen a big spike in high-end home sales. 

This table ranks each county by the percentage of active listings going into contract in June/July 2020 - a standard statistic of market heat - compares it to the same period of last year, and then rates the year-over-year change. By this indicator, San Mateo County was the strongest market in the Bay Area one year ago. It is slightly hotter this year, but many other counties have seen very dramatic surges in demand.