And we’re back! Even though the shelter in place mandate is still underway, the Marin real estate market is bouncing back with over 75+ new listings hitting the market in the past week. Though the Marin April median house price declined a little year over year (after 3 months of increases), too much should not be made of one month’s data – Marin’s monthly median sales price often fluctuates without great meaningfulness. 

While the real estate market has certainly slowed down over the last few weeks with significantly fewer new listings on the market than our typical Spring season, we've been very active helping our clients buy and sell homes during this time. We've represented eight families and couples buying or selling homes since mid-March when shelter in place (SIP) began, three of which have already closed escrow. 

As the real estate industry continues to change, we are dedicated to helping our community of homeowners, buyers and sellers safely work through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The data below will help keep you updated on market activity. Changing regulations are impacting our strategies to safely, legally and successfully sell homes during this time and we are continuing to guide our clients to succeed in this market while minimizing risk.

Today we’re facing two very large, uncertain forces – the coronavirus and the stock market. We can’t halt the global spread of infectious disease or dictate the direction of the Dow, but can we can offer thoughtful guidance to our clients to make wise decisions in a changing environment.

Generally speaking, after years of high appreciation rates, annual 2019 Bay Area median home prices basically remained unchanged as compared to 2018. Marin is one of the markets that ticked down, though the message is more mixed when looking at individual city price trends.

For 2020, economist Ken Rosen at UC Berkeley has said he expects the Bay Area median price to remain flat, within a general range of up or down 2% - in other words, similar to what happened last year. We can’t predict the future, but that doesn’t sound unreasonable, and happily avoids the sensationalism of many other media-grabbing forecasts.

Home sales activity in Marin County in the second quarter picked up solidly compared to the challenging start to the year. And while overall sales still trended slightly below last year’s second quarter, sales of homes priced above $2 million saw a stronger rebound finally falling in line with last year’s sales.

As in most of the Bay Area, first quarter housing market activity in Marin remained challenging, leading to fewer overall sales compared to last year. However, most of the decline in sales came from homes priced above $3 million, while lower priced homes fared relatively better than in most of the other Bay Area regions.

While 2018 home sales activity in Marin County generally maintained a steady momentum, the pace of sales slowed in the fourth quarter, with most price ranges posting fewer transactions than at the same time last year. However, sales of homes priced between $2 million and $3 million posted a solid gain compared with the fourth quarter of last year.