Marin home prices up 8.9% in 2017; inventory still low

Marin County's already inflated housing market climbed even more in 2017, with the median price of all homes at $980,000, an 8.9 percent jump from the 2016 median of $900,000, a real estate data tracking firm said.

Irvine, Calif.,-based CoreLogic statistics show that sales volume in Marin was also up 2.1% in 2017, with 3,386 homes sold during the year, compared with 3,315 sold a year earlier.

Marin's rising prices are in line with the total Bay Area, although sales volume in Marin took the opposite tack from the region, where sales were down slightly overall, said CoreLogic research analyst Andrew LePage.

The median price of all homes sold in the Bay Area rose to $742,500 in 2017, a 10% bump over the $675,000 median in 2016, LePage said. The total number of homes sold — including resale and new homes and condos — dropped 0.7% to 86,746, down from 87,316 in 2016.

Belvedere, Calif.

Blaine Morris, a broker with Pacific Union International Realty in Kentfield, said the median price data in Marin might not reflect an overall across-the-board rise. Instead, he said, the median prices are likely skewed by the lack of inventory for homes priced in the lower end of the Marin market at $1 million or less.

"It's the same thing we were seeing at the end of last year," said Morris, who last week was showing potential buyers Will Sousae and Jennifer Heyneman Sousae of San Francisco a home for sale for $1.3 million on Rowland Boulevard in Novato.

"Sellers are not putting their homes on the market because there's no place for them to move to (at the lower end of the market) and because they're afraid of mortgage interest rates rising — if they already are locked in at a lower interest rate where they are."

The Sousaes, who have been looking in Marin since about December, said they want a larger space where they can entertain their growing extended family of three grown children, two grandchildren, two sets of grandparents — and at least one sister. Their flat in San Francisco, where they have lived for six years, has about 1,100 square feet. The Novato home, listed at $1.3 million, has four bedrooms and 2,500 square feet.

"We want a destination grandparents' home," she said. "In an ideal world, in Marin we will find our little love nest with a hot tub, but with space to entertain 20 to 40 people during the holidays and space to house about eight people during that time."

The couple have seen a wide range of options in Marin so far, but Heyneman Sousae, executive director of the conservation and arts-focused RHE Foundation, said she was impressed with Novato.

"Novato is currently (looking like) a jewel in the crown of Marin," she said. "There's a little bit more distance (from San Francisco), but we may be getting more house for the same dollars."

Morris, meanwhile, said he has seen a drop in home sales in Marin during the first six weeks of 2017 — and suspects it is due to the factors he mentioned earlier — the specter of rising mortgage interest rates and the lack of options for sellers to relocate.

"Single-family home sales are down 5.5% in the first six weeks of this year over last year, from 119 sold this year to 126 in 2016," Morris said, quoting data he said he gathered from the local Multiple Listing Service. "And it was pouring rain at this time last year."

Condo sales are down 24% so far this year, from 49 sold in 2016 to 37 in the first six weeks of 2017, he said.

"It all goes back, not to a lack of interest, but a lack of inventory," Morris said.

Tribune Content Agency
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