Home prices continue to surge in San Mateo County

“We’re in an environment that’s fueled by technology and tech jobs, what you really need to have if you’re going to be able to afford a house here,” Chuck Gillooley, Mid-Peninsula real estate specialist at Compass, said.  

Tech workers may have even accumulated more wealth since they were still able to keep their jobs during the pandemic, and weren’t traveling and spending as much, he said.

There are generally buyers from four main categories: high tech, biotech, health care and finance. While the housing prices are too expensive for many, there is enough demand from those who can afford it, Raziel Ungar, a Realtor at Compass, said.

“For every one person who might have left the area in the last year, you got three, four, five buyers who are putting up offers,” he said. 

Single-family residential homes were at an average sale price of $2.6 million, according to a June 2021 report by the San Mateo County Association of Realtors, or SAMCAR. And according to Redfin, in June 2021, San Mateo County home prices were up 9% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $1.7 million. On average, homes in San Mateo County sell after 10 days on the market compared to 22 days last year. There were 778 homes sold in June this year, up from 442 last year.

The markets in San Carlos and Redwood City continue to be really active, Gillooley said. 

“It’s been nothing but up, it’s been a really strong summer, probably stronger than normal summers because I think people are still not traveling a lot,” he said. “So you have a lot more buyers in town.”

From January to July of 2021, the average price of a single-family home in San Carlos increased by 15% from the same period in 2020 to a figure of $2,466,853. In Redwood City, the increase was also 15% to a figure of $2,101,434. Those are both the highest average sales prices ever recorded in either city for the first seven months of the year. The total sales volume for single-family residences for the same seven-month period increased by 54% in San Carlos to $481 million, and 56% in Redwood City to $811 million, according to a report by Gillooley.

“It’s important to note that the market was shut down for about two months during this period in 2020, so that makes the increase in sales volume more dramatic,” Gillooley said. “So if we keep on the pace that we are at, records will be set across the board in 2021 in just about every metric we track, for total sales volume, average sales price, median sales price, average price per square foot, etc.” 

Corelogic’s forecast is that home prices will continue to rise with slight slowdowns. June data peaked in acceleration, then it started to slow down in July, Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic, said. 

“There will be some slowdown in acceleration. So instead of increasing at 16%, it would be increasing at 15.5%,” she said.

Interest rates are expected to go up which might slow down the acceleration a little bit, Debbie Wong, Realtor at Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate, said. 

“We still have people that are looking for good deals, and that’s not ever going to stop I believe,” she said. “The Bay Area is such a destination for many cultures because many people have families and roots here even if they’re not from here.” 

Primarily, the people who are buying work in tech and are looking for a different housing experience, a home where one could also work, homeschool and entertain, she said. 

Ungar also said it is flattening a little bit possibly due to people traveling this summer as more people are getting vaccinated. However, he said home prices are still increasing, including in cities like Burlingame.

“The deals that I’ve been doing recently, majority of them have been over asking, but that’s for homes that are well-priced, good location and an attractive number,” he said. “So you can’t put any price on there, it needs to be something that does feel fair in the context of the market. I think when buyers feel the price is fair, then it’s pretty likely it will sell within a week.”

Burlingame home values soared during the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 with average and median values for Burlingame homes up 16% and 20%, respectively, reaching all-time highs in both categories and reaching closer to the $3 million mark, according to a report by Ungar. 

He also mentioned that a new 18-acre Oculus campus in Burlingame is expected to bring more housing demand. 

“I think once this campus opens, we’re going to continue to see a lot more pressure because that’s going to support about 5,000 jobs,” he said. 

julia@smdailyjournal.com

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