Sharon Kramlich's Marin County Real Estate Market Report

Year over year, the Q3 2018 Marin median house sales price was up 6% from Q3 2017. Note that median sales prices typically fall from Q2 to Q3, mostly due to seasonality issues.

Per the next 3 charts: Comparing September 2018 with September 2017, the number of new listings in Marin was up 6%, price reductions on active listings were up 21%, and the number of active listings on the market on a given day within the month was up 44%. 

 

What will tell us most about where the market is heading is how buyers respond to these new listings and price reductions, and that information won't be available until autumn's listings have time to accept offers, and accepted offers have time to close escrow - in quantity - to give us their data. 

Jumps in listings and price reductions have been common around the Bay Area, and in some counties, the changes are much more pronounced than in Marin: Sonoma saw a 122% increase in price reductions amid an active inventory of listings 90% higher than in September of last year. Santa Clara County saw staggering increases, but much of that is due to the fact that inventory was incredibly, abnormally low last year, when Santa Clara was perhaps the hottest real estate market in the country. 

Many of the standard statistics by which market heat is typically measured remain relatively unchanged in Marin year over year.

The number of new, higher-priced home listings coming on market jumped significantly in September. In another month, the data will become available on buyer response to the increased inventory.

September is not a big month for closed sales of luxury homes as closings in September mostly reflect accepted-offer activity in August - typically a slow month. It's not unusual to see a spike in October sales following the September surge in new listings.

Interest rates play a big role in the ongoing cost of housing. They have been climbing since the beginning of the year, and in the week ending October 11, they spiked up dramatically. Rates remain low on a historical basis, but are sharply higher than the lows reached in recent years.