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 We continue to see the trends that have prevailed for months. Inventory up, sales down average home price up. There are some interesting observations to make regarding when things are happening.
The market is starting to act outside what past experience tells us. This could be just interesting, or it could be an indication of a bigger shift.
Lets take a look at all the numbers and see where it leaves us.
Supply And Demand
Inventory is again up when compared to the same time last year. The total number of homes on the amrket is up by 24.3%. That gives us a grand total of 4891 homes currently for sale in Santa Clara Couty for the month of September 2007.
As inventory has been rising, sales have been dropping. In fact, sales are down a whipping 43.2% in September 2007 when compared to the same time in 2006. The same trend has been around since 2004. That gives us a grand total of 524 homes that sold in September.
So if we look at those numbers, we see that we have about 9.3 months worth of inventory currently on hand.
As for new listings, we saw a drop of 12% from the same time last year. That gave us 1735 homes added to the inventory, just in the month of September. 
Some interesting observations present themselves when we look at the same data for about the last 14 months.
We can again see that our "season" came early in 2007 with home sales getting a small boost in May rather than June and July - where we actually saw a dip in sales. From July to August we see a small increase, which is the opposite of what we normally see.
From July to September of last year, we saw a small decline and flattening in the inventory. This year, we see only a steady rise. Again, these most recent changes are counter to what we would normally expect at these times of the year. From August to September, we saw sold homes decrease 33.4%. New home listings were down 11.2% and the overall inventory was up by 2%.
Usually, whether the market is going up or down in a more general way, it still tends to follow along with some seasonal trends. We are seeing that idea turned around with the most recent data. When a market starts doing things that are counter to what we have observed for a long period of time, it can indicate larger shifts are about to occur.
For instance, we did not get a summer season. Even when we are looking at the short term numbers, we can see that the market actually declined during that time. In the past, the short term would show some level of increase that still resulted in a decrease from the same time last year. It will be interesting to see what the coming months have in store, given these numbers.
Home Prices
Again, home prices are up when compared to the same time last year.
The average price of a single family residential home in Santa Clara Count for September of 2007 was $1,067,938.
The highest price paid for a home in September was $9,750,000. That was located in Palo Alto.
The lowest priced home sold for $299,643 in the city of Gilroy.
Overall, the average price of a home is up 15.9% from last year.
Remember, these are the numbers for the entire county. There are many areas of Santa Clara County where the average price of a home is down from last year.
This is another good slide for spotting changes that fall out of normal expectations. For instance, last year we saw a general drop in average home prices from June to September. This year we saw some fluctuation that generally moved upward.
When compared to August 2007, prices are down 1.6%.
So again we have data that tends to indicate the market is doing things outside of the norm. Remember, this is not a discussion of the market being up or down, but rather observing that regardless of the market being up or down, it is doing thats that it normally would not.
Days On Market
Finally, we look at how long it has taken for homes to sell. Keep in mind that this reflects only homes that have sold, not how long all homes have been on the market.
Those homes that did sell in September were on the market for 49 days.
Overall, that is only a 2% decrease from the same time last year - a change of only 1 day.
This is also another number that tends to vary quite a bit from city to city within the county. In my area for instance, it is taking well over 100 days to get most homes sold.
Effectively pricing and marketing your home is the key. Those homes that are priced correctly and marketed well from the beginning are often selling within a week or two.
If we look at the month to month data, we can see the usual trends we would expect for the various seasons. With one exception. Notice that from August to September of 2006, the days to sell actually increased. This year, it dropped. In short, "good" market news - like sales or how long it takes to sell a home - seem to have come just before or after what is normally considered the summer season.
Why are we seeing more "action" outside the normal time for homes to be bought and sold? It could be that more folks are entering the market out of need rather than desire. If this is true, and we see more homes entering the market that MUST sell, this could result in the drop in prices that we have been talking about for months.
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